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NEW  YORK  AND  CANADA.  * 


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BOSTON  COUEGEUBRA' 
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AN 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

OF 

WE   MISSION  OF  NEW    YORK  AND    CANADA. 


About  fourteen  years  after  the  happy  day  on  which  Pius 
VII.  reestablished  our  least  Society  of  Jesus,  the  Right 
Rev.  Benedict  Joseph  Flaget,  Bishop  of  Bardstown,  ever 
on  the  watch  for  new  means  of  promoting  God's  glory  in 
his  vast  diocese,  solicited  from  Very  Rev.  Fr.  Godinot,  then 
Provincial  of  France,  some  missionaries  to  gather  in  the 
rich  harvest  of  souls  that  lay,  already  ripe  for  the  sickle, 
amid  the  green  prairies  of  Kentucky. 

As  an  earnest  of  his  eagerness  to  welcome  the  fathers, 
he  offered  his  own  college  of  St.  Joseph,  in  Bardstown,  to 
be  placed  at  their  disposal.  But  at  that  time  our  apostolic 
laborers  were  unable  to  meet  all  the  demands  upon  their 
charity  even   in    their  own  country ;  so  that,    although   it 


- 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


must  have  gladdened  the  heart  of  our  Very  Rev.  Father 
Provincial  to  behold  a  new  vista  unfolding  itself  before  the 
reestablished  Society,  in  that  land  to  which  the  old  Soci- 
ety, in  virtue  of  its  martyred  sons,  had  acquired  so  just  a 
right ;  still,  not  a  single  harvester  could  be  spared  for  these 
distant  fields  of  America.  The  bursting  crops  could  but 
bow  their  heads  in  humble  submission  to  the  Master's  will, 
and  abi^de  the  predestined  moment  of  its  due  accomplish- 
ment. It  came  sooner  than  could  have  been  expected. 
The  Almighty  who,  in  His  providence,  transfers  the  gift  of 
Faith  from  a  nation  that  has  become  unworthy  of  the  pre- 
cious deposit,  to  one  more  deserving,  had  already  turned 
his  benignant  countenance  towards  that  portion  of  Amer- 
ica, hitherto  less  favored  than  many  other  parts  of  our  con- 
tinent ;  had  heard  its  suppliant  "Rorate  Cceli  desuper,"  and 
destined  for  these  fields  of  the  New  World,  many  of  the 
Apostles  whom  the  Old  World  was  on  the  point  of  pro- 
scribing. 

.  The  Revolutionists  of  1830  were  not  slow  in  their  work 
of  proscription  ;  and  the  Omnipotent  made  use  of  their  very 
impiety  to  further  his  own  merciful  designs.  The  storm 
that  swept  over  France  served  to  waft  the  richly-laden 
vessels  of  benediction  that  rode  at  anchor  in  its  but  lately 
peaceful  waters,  towards  other  ports,  and  other  lands. 
America  received  its  share  of  the  blessings. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


The  new  Provincial  of  France,  Very  Rev.  Fr.  Druilhet 
not  unmindful  of  the  application  for  missionaries  made  by 
liishop  Flaget,  two  years  previous,  and  supposing  that  cir- 
cumstances had  remained  unaltered  in  Bardstown,  deemed 
it  advisable,  in  the  present  state  of  affairs,  to  comply  with 
the  prelate's  request.  Fathers  Chazelle,  Ladaviere  and  Petit, 
with  the  devoted  brother  Corne,  were  selected  for  this  new 
mission  ;  and  having  been  kindly  furnished  with  the  means 
of  defraying  their  expenses  by  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Faith,  they  bade  farewell  to  their  friends,  and 
their  country,  and  sailed  from  Pauillac,  near  Bordeaux,  Nov. 
19th,  1830. 

On  the  5th  of  Jan.,  the  eve  of  the  Epiphany,  the  island 
of  Guadaloupe  hove  in  sight.  Here  the  ship  cast  anchor, 
and  our  fathers  once  more  gladly  trod  the  earth,  having 
been  almost  two  months  at  sea.  The  following  day,  Rev. 
Fr.  Chazelle  had  the  happiness  of  opening  his  new  career 
by  preaching,  at  the  request  of  the  parish  priest,  on  Christ's 
manifestation  to  the  Gentiles.  But  the  regions  to  which 
he  and  his  little  band  were  to  bring  the  good  tidings  of  the 
gospel  were  still  far  distant ;  so  they  reembarked  without 
delay.  Fifteen  days  more  on  the  waves  brought  them  to 
New  Orleans,  the  terminus  of  their  journey  by  sea.  There 
still  remained  upwards  of  1600  miles  of  overland  travel, 
before   they    could  reach    Kentucky ;    but   as    the    season 


4  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


was  far  advanced,  and  the  rivers  closed  to  naviga- 
tion for  the  season,  they  were  forced  to  tarry  two  months 
in  New  Orleans.  This  delay  they  turned  to  the  greater 
glory  of  God :  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  flew  to  the  prison  cells 
of  some  slaves  condemned  to  death,  accompanied  them 
with  words  of  hope  and  consolation  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, and  then  devoted  himself  to  the  work  of  teaching 
catechism  to  the  little  children.  The  other  Fathers  were 
likewise  employed  in  spiritual  works  of  mercy. 

Meantime  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  had  written  to  acquaint 
Bishop  Flaget  with  their  arrival.  The  letter  fell  as  a  thun- 
derbolt on  His  Lordship,  as  well  as  on  the  priests  of  his 
diocese:  for  when,  in  1828,  the  saintly  prelate  had  found 
it  impossible  to  obtain  any  members  of  the  Society,  for  the 
management  of  his  college,  he  had  handed  it  over  to  the 
secular  clergy.  His  astonishment  then,  at  seeing  the  Fa- 
thers present  themselves  to  enter  upon  the  discharge  of  their 
anticipated  duties,  was  equalled  only  by  the  amazement  of 
the  Fathers  themselves,  when  they  learned  that  these  duties 
were  already  fulfilled  by  others  who  iooked  on  them  almost 
as  intruders.  The  Bishop  scarcely  knew  what  answer  to 
give  to  Rev.  Father  Chazelle's  letter ;  still  he  expressed  a 
hope  of  finding  some  work  in  his  diocese  for  the  mission- 
aries ;  and  encouraged  by  the  prelate's  reply,  Fr.  Chazelle 
set  out  with  Fr.  Petit,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  little  colony 
still  at  New  Orleans. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Had  naught  been  consulted  but  the  good  Bishop's  love 
for  the  Society,  there  would  not  have  been  a  moment's  hes- 
itation or  delay  ;  but  as  matters  actually  stood,  the  saintly 
p  relate  was  at  a  loss  how  to  act.  To  send  back  the  Fathers 
after  they  had  been  so  ardently  longed  for  ;  when,  after  so 
many  dangers,  they  were  actually  on  the  field,  and  on  all 
.-ides  the  rich  harvest  was  waving  in  the  breeze,  as  if  beck- 
oning to  them  not  to  pass  by :  this  he  could  not  bring  him- 
self to  do,  and  yet  it  was  impossible  to  give  them  now  what 
he  had  before  intended. 

The  Bishop  was  too  truly  a  man  of  God,  (insignis  pieta- 
tis,  says  the  MS.)  to  doubt,  after  the  first  moments  of  sur- 
prise were  over,  whither  he  should  look  for  light  in  his  per- 
plexity. The  wings  of  prayer  bore  him  aloft  to  the  throne 
of  the  Mighty  Counsellor;  into  Whose  Paternal  Bosom  his 
doubts,  and  his  troubles  and  his  fears  were  poured  with  a 
filial  confidence. 

The  more  surely  to  obtain  what  he  sought,  he  enlisted 
St.  Ignatius  in  his  cause,  by  beginning  in  concert  with  Rev. 
Fr.  Chazelle  a  novena  preparatory  to  the  feast  of  our  Holy 
Founder.  It  would  indeed  have  been  surprising,  had  the 
losing  Father  of  all  mankind  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  pray- 
ers of  these  devoted  pastors  of  souls,  offered  as  they  were 
by  the  hands  of  the  soul-enamoured  Ignatius.  And  in 
fact,  the  novena  was  not  yet  concluded,  when  the  Bishop 


6  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


received  an  unexpected  and  extraordinary  letter  from  a 
priest  of  his  diocese,  the  Rev.  William  Byrne,  a  man,  for  a 
long  time,  by  no  means  friendly  to  the  Society,  and  espe- 
cially of  late,  greatly  opposed  to  the  entrance  of  our  Fa- 
thers into  Kentucky. 

it  would  not  be  very  difficult  for  us  to  imagine  what  the 
purport  of  the  letter  might  have  been,  but  God  Almighty 
alone  could  have  made  it  what  it  really  was.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Byrne  offered  to  the  Fathers  the 
College  of  St.  Mary's  which,  on  ground  given  him  by  the 
bishop,  he  had  built,  and  for  twelve  years  had  been  improv- 
ing and  beautifying.  It  was  situated  about  ten  miles  from 
Bardstown,  and  had  attached  to  it  a  farm  of  nearly  300 
acres.  No  price  was  stipulated ;  no  condition  or  restriction 
whatever  laid  upon  the  grant,  save  that  Father  Byrne  should 
continue  to  preside  over  the  institution  in  the  name  of  our 
Fathers,  until  they  would  be  in  a  condition  to  undertake  its 
full  management  themselves. 

Father  Byrne's  kind  offer  was  immediately  referred  to 
Rome,  but  as  delays  were  unavoidable,  it  was  only  on  the 
7th  of  July  of  the  following  year,  1832,  that  letters  from 
Most  Rev.  Fr.  Roothan  announced  his  definitive  approval  of 
the  acceptance  of  St.  Mary's. 

The  little  family,  less  numerous  than  that  of  St.  Ignatius 
and  his  first  companions,  seemed  hardly  able  to  meet  all  the 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


wants  of  a  college  ;  but,  as  in  the  still  smaller  family  of  Naz- 
areth, Jesus  was  one  of  the  number:  with  Him,  all  things 
were  possible.  The  Fathers  accordingly  entered  on  the 
discharge  of  their  new  functions  with  all  their  energy.  A 
kind  providence  was  watching  over  them,  and,  one  by  one, 
new  laborers  joined  them  in  the  vineyard  they  were  culti- 


vating. 


The  first  was  Fr.  Fouche,  born  in  Paris,  May  9th,  1789, 
and,  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  director  of  the  Semi- 
nary of  Bardstown.  The  second  was  Fr.  Evremond  Haris- 
sart,  born  in  the  same  city,  May  19th,  1792,  and  likewise 
superior  of  a  Seminary.  They  had  both  gone  through  a 
spiritual  retreat,  under  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle,  the  preceding 
year  ;  and  the  result  was  but  a  repetition  of  the  first  victory 
of  the  Exercises,  three  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  the  same 
i  nspired  book  of  the  Exercises  that  was  doing  its  work  over 


again. 


As  our  nascent  mission  could  not  then  boast  of  a  house 
of  probation,  the  Province  of  Maryland,  our  elder  sister, 
kindly  placed  at  our  disposal  its  Novitiate  at  Whitemarsh. 
Fr.  Evremond  was  accordingly  received  within  its  friendly 
enclosure  and  began  his  noviceship  at  once.  Fr.  Fouche 
could  not  succeed  in  resigning  his  post  in  the  Bardstown 
Seminary  before  September  of  the  following  year ;  and  as 
our  Most  Rev.  Fr.  General  had,  by  that  time,  decided  that 


A  ew  ]  rork  and  Canada  Mission. 


a  Novitiate  should  be  opened  in  Kentucky  itself,  under  Rev. 
Fr.  Chazelle  as  Master  of  Novices,  Fr.  Evremond  bade  a- 
dieu  to  Whitemarsh,  and  with  many  fond  recollections  of 
his  first  home  lingering  in  his  heart,  joined  Fr.  Fouche  at 
St.  Mary's.  Thus  it  was  that  the  first  two  novices  of  our 
mission  exchanged  their  lofty  stations  for  the  humble  life 
of  the  Novitiate. 

The  22nd  of  December,  1832,  though  astronomically  one 
of  those  days  on  which  the  rays  of  the  sun  are  most  chary 
of  their  gladdening  visits  to  our  earth,  was  more  than  usu- 
al ly  blithesome  and  sun-bright  for  our  little  family  at    St. 
Mary's;  announcing,  as  it  did,  the  arrival  of  three  more 
Fathers  from  Europe.  France  had  already  sent  her  mission- 
aries to  the  forests  of  Kentucky,  and,  this  time,  Spain,  Italy 
and  Switzerland  furnished  their  quota.     Not  that  the  new- 
comers were  natives  of  these  parts  of  the  globe,  for  Fr. 
Maguire  was  born  in  Ireland,  and  Fathers  Gilles  and  Le- 
gouais  in  France,  but  they  were  actually  laboring  in  these 
several  countries,  and  these  countries  it  was  that  made  the 
sacrifice  for  the  good  of  America. 

With  what  heartfelt  emotions  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  must 
have  pressed  to  his  bosom  these  brothers  from  the  Old 
World,  those  alone  who  have  left  country,  and  family  and 
home  for  Christ's  sake  can  imagine.  A  day  or  two  was  al- 
lotted to  repose  after  the  fatigues  of  the  journey,  and  then 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


the  five  co-laborers  entered  on  the  regular  life  of  the  Soci- 
ety  with  all  the  punctuality  and  exactness  observed  in  the 
oldest  house  in  Europe. 

The  first  need  that  made  itself  felt  was  a  knowledge  of 
the  English  tongue  ;  and  accordingly,  all  who  were  defi- 
cient in  this  respect,  gave  themselves  up  to  the  study  of 
the  language  of  the  country,  with  incredible  ardor :  FE. 
Fouche  and  Evremond  acting  as  professors  of  English  lit- 
erature to  Eathers  Gilles  and  Eegouais.  So  really  heroic 
was  their  desire  to  advance  in  their  studies,  that,  as  we  find 
recorded  in  the  MS.  diary  of  those  days,  it  was  strictly 
forbidden  to  say  a  single  word  in  French  ;  and  this  gener- 
ous sacrifice  of  what  is  so  dear  to  everyone,  the  sweet  mu- 
sic of  his  native  tongue,  was  offered,  as  a  pleasing  holocaust 
to  Mary,  during  her  lovely  month  of  May. 

Hitherto  some  of  the  members  of  our  mission  had  never 
met,  but  on  the  13th  of  May,  1833,  those  Fathers  who 
had  remained,  as  we  have  seen,  at  New  Orleans,  aiding 
the  good  Bishop  of  that  diocese,  joined  their  companions 
in  Kentucky.  Thus,  for  the  first  time,  "sine  quidem  huma- 
110."  says  the  MS.,  "non  autem  absque  divino  consilio,"  all 
the  FF.  of  the  French  Province,  then  in  America,  with  the 
exception  of  Father  de  Grivel,  who  filled  the  office  of  Mas- 
ter of  Novices  in  the  Province  of  Maryland,  met  together, 
in  their  common  home,  to  the  number  of  eight:  "cum  in- 


io  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


genti  sane  omnium  gaudio,  et  mutua  gratulatione."     We 

arc  fain  to  believe  that,  if  the  edict  expelling  the  French 
language  from  the  community  had  not  yet  been  repealed, 
the  exile  was  recalled  from  his  banishment,  at  least  for  a 
tew  hours  ;   hours  so  swift-footed  on  such  an  occasion.* 

\\  e  have  dwelt  thus  at  length  on  the  infancy  of  our  mis- 
sion, for  the  reason  that  there  is  always  something  sweetly 
attractive  in  tracing  out  the  first  beginnings  of  even  the 
least  of  God's  works  ;  and  because  the  halo  of  sanctity  in- 
variably encircles  all  pioneers  on  a  new  field  of  God's  glorv. 

We  have  even  (^erstepped  a  little  the  actual  date,  at 
which   our  sketch  has  now  arrived,  in   order  to   display  at 


*  The  aged  Fathers  of  our  mission  divide  its  history  inlo  three  dis- 
tinct periods:  the  Heroic,  or  Fabulous,  the  Pre-Historie,  and  the  His- 
toric proper.  Thus  far  we  have  been  treating  of  the  Fabulous  times, 
slightly  encroaching,  however,  on  the  era  that  begins  to  be  dimly  histor- 
ical. The  appellation  given  to  the  first  period  could  not  be  more  appro- 
priate, for,  the  MS.  diary  bears  testimony  to  facts  which,  in  our  days, 
seem  fabulous  indeed.  How  the  students,  not  a  hundred  in  number, 
could  be  boarded  and  taught  at  the  annual  rate  of  $60  each :  —How  tur- 
keys were  one  of  the  cheapest  articles  of  food  to  be  found  :  twenty -five 
cents  being  sufficient  to  procure  from  any  neighboring  cabin  a  beautiful 
specimen  already  dressed,  cooked  and  fit  for  the  table :— How  the  receipts 
for  tuition  were  seldom  deposited  in  the  hands  of  the  treasurer,  but 
driven  by  the  farmer,  into  the  barn-yard,  in  the  shape  of  well-fed  porkers, 
or  else  poured  into  the  milk  cans  of  the  dairy. 

The  peculiar  sort  of  book-keeping  recmisite  in  such  circumstances,  was 
perhaps,  more  complicated  than  ordinary  Double  Entry  ;  and  the  disposal 
of  the  live-stock  was  not  unfrequently  the  great  event  of  the  day.  Thus, 
the  only  item  of  information  we  find  recorded  for  Nov.  30th,  1838,  is  the 
terse,  but  fearfully  significant  sentence  !  "porcis  plurimis  dies  fatalis ;" 
and  this  fatal  day.  was  probably  of  no  rare  occurrence  in  the  domestic 
economy  of  St.  Mary's. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  11 


once  all  the  beauties  of  this  picture  of  religious  peace  and 
happiness,  lest  the  coming  storm-clouds  should  prevent  our 
noticing  some  of  its  less  salient,  but  no  less  charming  traits. 
Though,  in  very  deed,  the  storm-clouds  themselves  form 
the  most  natural  feature  in  every  picture  of  the  Society  ;  and 
a  scene  in  which  no  such  signs  of  the  continued  prayers  of 
Ignatius  would  be  visible,  either  actually  over  the  land- 
scape, or  already  disappearing  in  the  distance,  or  but  just 
merging  from  the  horizon,  would  be  but  a  chilling  prospect 
to  every  true  son  of  our  sainted  Father :  the  finger  of  God 
would  not  be  there.  And  of  the  three,  perhaps  the  scene 
in  which  the  storm  is  just  appearing,  is  the  most  consoling  ; 
for,  the  peaceful  traits  are  still  undisturbed,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  the  rising  clouds  are  an  earnest  that  our  peace  is  not 
the  false  tranquillity  of  the  world ;  that  it  is  a  peace,  not 
enervating,  but  strong  and  holy ;  and  one  that  by  no  means 
clashes  with  the  sword  Christ  brought  on  earth. 

How  much  soever  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  may  at 
times  seem  to  favor  us,  it  will  never  cease  to  be  true,  that 
the  birthplace  of  the  Society  was  the  mount  of  Martyrs  ;  and 
that  not  one  of  its  many  colonies  has  belied  our  first  home  : 
not  a  single  new  province  or  mission  has  been  founded,  but 
has  been  blessed  with  its  share  of  crosses,  and  consequent 
crowns.  .The  first  token  of  the  coming  storm  was  the  ad- 
vent of  that  messenger  from  above,  that  true    scourge  of 


12  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


God,  the  cholera.  This  fearful  epidemic  had,  the  preceding 
year  (1832),  visited  the  shores  of  North  America  and  har- 
vested its  victims  by  thousands,  filling  the  land  with  mourn- 
ing and  desolation  ;  but  its  work  was  not  completed,  and 
now  it  was  once  more  on  our  shores,  to  glean  what  had  es- 
caped it  before.  Its  approach  was  sudden  :  the  first  notice 
of  its  entrance  into  the  immediate  vicinity  of  our  Fathers, 
was  the  cry  for  spiritual  help  from  a  woman  attacked  by  the 
terrible  plague,  Monday,  June  2nd,  1833.  This  was  the 
moment,  for  devoted  soldiers  to  fly  to  the  post  of  danger  ;  a 
moment  which  might  prove  the  recompense  of  years  of  toil 
and  privation,  which  might  be  the  stepping  stone  to  a  mar- 
tyr's crown.  Yet  (with  the  exception  of  one  unacquainted 
with  the  language)  not  a  priest  was  in  the  house,  save 
Father  Bvrne ;  all  our  Fathers  who  were  wont  to  betake 
themselves  every  Sunday,  for  the  exercise  of  their  minis- 
try, to  the  neighboring  villages,  were  still  at  their  posts. 
But  the  zealous  Father  Byrne,  though,  in  his  feeble  state  of 
health,  he  might  justly  have  feared  to  be,  in  the  present 
case,  the  victim  rather  than  the  saviour,  hesitated  not  an  in- 
stant— he  was  beginning  on  earth  a  triduum  of  charity 
which  he  was  to  close  in  heaven.  He  visited  the  dying 
woman  assiduously  on  the  3rd  and  4th  inst,  but  on  the  5th, 
the  eve  of  Corpus  Christi,  he  read  the  smile  of  approval  on 
his  Master's  countenance ;  he  gazed  for  the  last  time  on  the 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  13 


veiled  body  of  his  Saviour,  and  was  then  admitted  to  behold 
It  face  to  face,  to  celebrate  the  Feast  of  that  adorable  Body 
in  the  abode  of  bliss.  Nine  hours  had  not  elapsed  between 
the  first  struggle  and  the  crown.  The  Master  had  come 
suddenly,  but  he  found  his  servant  watching,  the  lamp 
of  faith  burning  brightly  in  his  hands  ;  the  garment  of 
charity  closely  girt  around  him.  The  spot  for  his  tomb 
was,  by  permission  of  the  Bishop,  chosen  on  the  ground  of 
the  deceased;  that  amid  the  very  fields  on  which  he  had 
toiled  so  long  and  with  so  much  energy,  and  which  he  had, 
with  noble  disinterestedness,  dedicated  to  God's  glory,  he 
might  at  last  rest  in  peace.  Father  Byrne  was  by  no  means 
an  old  man,  but  he  had  lived  for  God,  and 

"Virtue,  not  rolling  suns,  the  mind  matures : 
That  life  is  long  which  answers  life's  great  end." 

Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  had  to  enter  immediately  on  the  full 
administration  of  the  College.  His  first  concern  was  to 
provide  for  the  safety  of  the  students,  but  they  themselves 
soon  rendered  all  further  measures  of  precaution  impossible. 
A  panic  seized  numbers  of  them,  who,  the  very  moment  Fr. 
Byrne's  obsequies  were  concluded,  without  a  thought  of 
asking  leave,  forsook  the  college  precincts.  Of  the  refugees, 
some  passed  the  night  in  the  neighboring  farm-houses ; 
others,  less  favored,  after  losing  their  way,  were  forced  to 
lie  down  on  the  hard  ground,  with  no  shelter  above  them 


14  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


save  the  wide-spreading  oak  of  the  forest.  Meanwhile  the 
Fathers  devoted  themselves  to  their  ministry  untiringly, 
nisrht  and  dav.  The  calls  upon  their  charity,  whether  by 
the  plague-stricken,  or  those  who  only  feared  the  approach 
of  the  epidemic,  were  so  numerous,  that  the  few  laborers 
could  scarcely  respond  to  them  all.  Still,  almost  countless 
was  the  number  of  souls  which  this  merciful  visitation  of 
the  Almighty,  Who  loveth  even  while  He  chastiseth,  gath- 
ered into  the  heavenly  garners,  and  which,  otherwise,  would 
one  day  have  been  cast  with  the  unprofitable  cockle  into 
eternal  flames. 

But  God  still  demanded  as  a  holocaust  from  our  own 
number,  one  of  the  most  useful  of  the  little  band — the  price 
of  Calvary's  blessing  on  our  future  labors  ;  at  a  moment, 
too,  when  every  laborer  was  extending  so  strenuously  the 
kingdom  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  men  :  so  little  necessary 
for  God's  work,  are  even  the  most  devoted. 

The  terrible  devastator  after  carrying  off  two  of  the  stu- 
dents who  had  remained,  and  one  servant,  came  finally  to 
Fr.  Maguire.  This  zealous  missionary  felt  that  he  had  not 
long  to  live;  he  heard  within  him  the  call  of  death,  and, 
piously  avaricious,  dreading  the  loss  of  the  least  particle 
of  so  precious  a  time,  begged  the  assistants  not  to  allow 
him  to  be  overcome  by  lethargy,  but  to  rouse  him  by  fre- 
quent aspirations.     Their  task  was  a  light  one  indeed — no 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  15 


external  monitor  was  necessary  to  inflame  the  dying  ser- 
vant of  God:  his  heart  allowed  no  thoughts  but  those  of 
heaven  to  enter  ;  his  lips  gave  passage  to  no  words  save  those 
of   eternity.       Before   his   senses   failed   him,   he   earnestly, 
begged  that  his  crucifix,  his  rosary  and  his  book  of  rules 
should  repose  upon  his  bosom  ;  that  as  they  had  been  the 
objects    of   his  love  in  life,  they  might  be  his    solace   in 
death  ;  and  it  was  his  special  request  that  all  care  should  be 
taken,  lest  the  Scapular  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  which  he  had 
worn  from  infancy  should  by  any  chance  be  removed.     An 
agony  of  excruciating  intensity  served  to  purify  more  and 
more  the  wedding  garment  of  the  departing  soul ;  and  as 
the  holy  religious  had  led  a  life  of  perfect  obedience,  so  his 
last  moments  were  the  fulfilment  to  the  letter  of  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  Constitutions,  (Pars  VI.  Cap.  4.)  In  morte 
unusquisque  de  societate  eniti  et  curare  debet  ut  in  ipso 
Deus    ac    Dominus   noster    Jesus    Christus   glorificetur   et 
proximi  aadificentur.  Fr.  Maguire  was  only  33  years  of  age, 
and  had  been  8  years  in  the  Society. 

From  the  death  bed  of  Fr.   Maguire  the  holy  viaticum 

was  carried  to  the  couch  of  Fr.  L whose  recovery 

no  one  expected  ;  whilst  about  the  same  time,  Fr.  Fouche, 
busy  with  the  dying  at  the  neighboring  village  of  Loretto, 
was  suddenly  prostrated  by  the  disease.  It  seemed  indeed 
as  though  our  little  bark  would  never  be  able  to  weather  the 


1 6  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


storm  :  one  of  the  stalwart  rowers  had  already  been  swept 
away ;  two  more  seemed  about  to  share  the  same  fate — and 
still  the  Divine  Master  slumbered.  But  the  shadow  that 
hung  so  darkly  over  us,  was  only  that  of  the  cross  ;  the 
clouds  that  had  gathered  so  tearfully  and  so  threateningly 
around  us,  were  of  no  deeper  hue  than  those  of  Calvary — 
and  Calvary  had  its  Easter.  Calvary  saw  the  rising  of  its  God 
— that  God  Who  is  ever  able  to  inspire  hope  against  hope. 

At  that  very  hour  consolation  was  at  hand,  and  though 
it  seemed  only  a  stray  beam  that  had  found  its  way  be- 
tween ;the  dark  masses  of  clouds,  silvering  for  an  instant  all 
it  met  on  its  path  to  be  followed  next  moment  by  a  yet 
thicker  darkness,  still  a  long'  series  of  brighter  davs  was 
not  far  off. 

Fr.  Fouche  recovered  after  a  week's  illness  ;   Fr.  L 

though  sustaining  an  attack  of  more  than  12  days,  was  not 
so  soon  to  be  called  to  his  rest ;  but  was  to  be  reserved  for  a 
long  life  of  useful  toil,  becoming  the  spiritual  Father  of 
children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation. 

The  Cholera  had  disappeared,  but  God's  chastening  rod 
was  still  upraised.  The  30th  of  December,  1833,  was  a 
memorable  day  in  the  early  history  of  our  mission.  Father 
Chazelle  had  set  out  on  horseback  that  afternoon  to  trans- 
act some  business,  intending  to  return  before  nightfall  ; 
but,  as    frequently  happened    to  travellers  in    those  days. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  17 


when  roads  were  a  luxury  rarely  met  with,  and  when  more 
depended  on  the  instinct  of  the  beast  of  burden  than  the 
intelligence  of  the  rider,  he  lost  his  way  in  the  forest,  and 
night  coming  on,  was  forced  to  seek  shelter  in  a  stranger's 
cabin.  Thus,  says  the  pious  MS.,  did  Divine  Providence 
spare  the  guardian  of  the  house,  the  sight  of  the  fearful 
disaster  that  was  about  to  fall  upon  it :  sweet  sleep,  after  a 
day  spent  in  fatigue  for  God's  service,  soon  closing  his 
heavy  eyelids,  while  his  flock  was  suffering  so  keenly  for 
want  of  its  shepherd.  But  the  kind  Master  for  whom  he 
had  toiled,  took  the  place  of  the  care-worn  servant ;  the 
Great  Shepherd  kept  watch  over  the  fold,  and  no  harm  was 
to  come  to  it  but  what  He,  in  His  providence,  permitted. 

The  students  had  just  finished  their  night  prayers  in  the 
chapel,  and  were  crossing  the  yard  on  their  way  to  the  dor- 
mitory, situated  in  an  adjoining  building,  when,  on  a  sud- 
den, a  huge  column  of  flame  burst  forth  from  the  very 
building  which  they  were  approaching.  There  was  a  mo- 
ment's stand-still  in  utter  amazement  and  awe.  Fire!  fire! 
were  the  first  words  that  rang  out  from  the  mouth  of  even- 
student,  on  the  clear,  cold  air  of  that  winter's  night ;  and 
then  followed  the  usual  rushing  of  persons  madly  to  and 
fro,  according  as  each  one  thought  of  some  cherished  object 
that  might  still  be  snatched  from  the  flames,  or  imagined 
some   new   means  of  stemming  the  burning  torrent.      But 


1 8  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


no  water  was  to  be  had — not  even  a  ladder  could  be  pro- 
cured— and,  especially,  there  was  no  one  to  direct  the  will- 
ing  hands  that  were  wasting  their  strength  in  efforts,  un- 
availing because  not  united.  And,  all  this  time,  poor  Fr. 
Chazelle  was  quietly  reposing,  a  few  miles  away,  utterly  un- 
conscious of  the  dread  visitor  of  his  little  home. 

Some  of  the  students'  beds,  and  a  number  of  books  was 
all  that  was  rescued  from  the  flames  :  the  entire  building, 
save  the  four  outside  walls  that  still  stood  amid  the  wreck, 
had  become  a  heap  of  ruins.  The  work  of  destruction 
was  completed  in  half  an  hour  ;  but  the  pang  it  caused  was 
of  far  longer  duration,  and  was  the  more  deeply  felt  as  the 
authors  of  the  conflagration  were,  some  time  afterwards, 
discovered  to  be  two  or  three  unruly  students,  who  through 
a  motive  of  fiendish  revenge,  had  coolly  plotted  this  terrible 
crime. 

The  Fathers,  however,  did  not  murmur  at  this  new  visi- 
tation from  on  high  ;  on  the  contrary  thev  found  matter  for 
sincere  thanksgiving  in  the  fact  that  amid  such  confusion 
and  danger,  not  a  single  person  had  been  injured;  audit 
was  a  sweetly  consoling  thought  in  their  personal  distress, 
that  though  they  had  lost  one  of  their  own  dwellings,  the 
house  of  their  loving  Saviour,  the  temple  of  God  had  been 
spared.  In  fact,  when  the  conflagration  was  at  its  height, 
and  it  seemed  evident  that  not  a  single  one  of  the  buildings 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  19 


could  escape,    the   wind  had   suddenly  veered   around    in 
another  direction. 

During  the  whole  time  of  the  fire  the  students  had  given 
proofs  of  great  devotedness  and  bravery,  and  though  beds 
had  been  prepared   for  them  in  an   adjoining  building,  but 
few  cared  to  retire  to  rest.     The  greater  number  passed  a 
wakeful   night  beside  the  still   smoking  ruins,  and  as  they 
stood  there,  peering  into  the  dying  embers,  their  shadows 
cast   darkly  on  the   crisp   ground   behind   them,   manifold 
were  their  expressions  of  sincere  condolence  with  their  be- 
loved instructors.     But,  at  the  same  time,  they  could  hard- 
ly have  been  able  entirely  to  curb  an   undercurrent  of  less 
saddening    reflections   concerning,  themselves  personally  ; 
and  although  they  would  probably  have  been  better  pleased 
had  a  few  more  beds  been  spared,  even  at   the  price  of  all 
the  rescued  books  ;   they  must  have  found  a  boyish  conso- 
lation in  the  thought  that  many  a  hard  puzzling  lesson  was 
deeper   down    in   the   heaps   of  smouldering   ashes  before 
them,  than  it  had  ever  been  able  to  penetrate  into  their  less 
pervious   skulls,   and   many  a   dog-eared   volume  was  now- 
paying  in  the  flames  the  penalty  of  having  so  often  racked 
young,  innocent  brains. 

It  was  a  fearful  blow  for  poor  Fr.  Chazelle  when  the  next 
morning  at  daybreak,  he  was  found  and  informed  of  the 
dire  catastrophe.      He  was  not,  however,  disheartened  :  the 


20  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


man  who  has  placed  his  trust  in  heaven,  earth's  shocks  can 

not  overcome. 

"Though  tempest  frowns, 
Though  nature  shakes,  how  soft  to  lean  on  Heav'n  ; 
To  lean  on  Him  on  Whom  Archangels  lean  ! " 

His  first  act  was  to  have  recourse  to  the  Giver  of  all  life  and 
strength.  This  done,  he  held  a  consultation,  and,  at  its  close, 
informed  the  students  that  the  first  session  was  at  an  end  ; 
that  studies  would  be  resumed  towards  the  middle  of  the 
coming  month. 

That  evening,  the  last  of  the  old  year,  the  community  as 
customary  in  the  Society,  entoned  the  Te  Deum  with  grate- 
ful hearts,  for  the  blessings  of  the  past  twelvemonth  ;  and,  af- 
ter litanies,  presented  with  filial  love,  to  the  head  of  the  house 
their  best  wishes  for  the  coming  year.  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  in 
his  turn,  thanked  them  with  an  overflowing  heart,  and  with 
paternal  kindness,  exhorted  all  not  to  be  depressed  by  their 
present  misfortunes,  but  to  labor  strenuously  and  with  union 
of  wills  to  endow  their  institution,  already  proved  by  so 
man)'  trials,  with  all  possible  stability,  according  to  the 
measure  of  God's  grace.  It  was  the  same  vein  of  thought 
as  that  in  which,  a  few  days  later,  he  wrote  to  Very  Rev. 
Fr.  Provincial.  "Trials,"  said  he  in  his  letter,  "must  be  ac- 
counted as  graces,  especially  in  the  Society.  As  long  as 
God  will  be  pleased  to  afflict  us,  we  are  far  from  being 
unhappy,  provided  His  crosses  find  us  true  sons  of  our 
Father,  St.  Ignatius." 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  21 


The  indomitable  spirit  that  animated  the  head,  actuated, 
likewise,  all  the  members  ;  and  the  work  of  repair  was  un- 
dertaken with  ardor.  Many  of  the  students  and  neighbors 
imitated  the  example  of  the  Fathers,  who  might  be  seen 
here  collecting  the  scattered  bricks,  there  hewing  massive 
pieces  of  timber ;  or,  when  the  building  was  roofed,  nailing 
laths  to  the  joists,  and,  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the  inferior  qual- 
ity of  the  iron,  breaking  vast  quantities  of  nails,  during 
this  their  first  apprenticeship  in  the  carpenter's  trade. 

Where  none  were  idle,  the  work  must  needs  have  rapidly 
progressed  ;  and  indeed,  despite  the  asperity  of  the  season, 
the  very  depth  of  winter,  on  the  23rd  of  January,  the  build- 
ing was  sufficiently  repaired  once  more  to  receive  the 
students. 

Nothing  of  note,  now  disturbed  the  pleasant  monotony  of 
college  life,  previous  to  the  26th  of  July,  1834,  the  First 
Annual  Commencement  Day  of  St.  Mary's  College,  since 
its  full  management  had  devolved  on  the  Fathers.  The 
exercises  took  place  on  a  rustic  stage  erected  under  the 
shady  trees  that  surrrounded  the  house,  and  comprised, 
among  other  literary  productions,  a  tragedy,  composed  by 
Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle,  who,  says  his  MS.  biography, '  was  con- 
vinced that  to  promote  the  glory  of  God  in  America,  and  in 
Kentucky,  he  must  first  become  a  real  American,  and  a 
Kentuckian.     The  play  was  entitled  "Redhawk,"   and   was 


22  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


designed  to  illustrate  the  ancient  customs  of  the  Indians, 
and  the  labors  of  the  early  American  settlers:  all  turning  to 
praise  of  Christianity.  The  bright  costumes  of  the  natives, 
in  which  the  actors  were  arrayed,  contributed  not  a  little  to 
the  success  of  the  drama. 

Perhaps  it  was  owing  to  these  and  other  sincere  tokens 
of  love  for  America,  exhibited  by  the  Fathers,  that  a  deep- 
rooted  affection  towards  them  gradually  took  the  place,  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  of  that  feeling  of  suspicion  and 
distrust  with  which  they  had  first  looked  upon  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Society.  But  whatever  may  have  given  it  rise, 
unequivocal  proof  that  this  affection  really  existed,  was 
shown  by  a  deputation  from  the  citizens  of  the  neighbor- 
ing village  of  Lebanon,  who  waited  on  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle, 
and  offered  to  open  a  subscription  for  rebuilding  the  college 
on  a  much  grander  scale.  The  Father  received  them  most 
affably  and  thanked  them  sincerely,  regretting  that  he  was 
unable  to  give  them,  at  once,  a  definitive  answer.  The 
question  was  immediately  referred  to  Rome,  and  after  it 
had  been  agitated  for  a  considerable  time,  and  recourse  to 
earnest  prayer  had  been  had  on  the  part  of  all,  it  was  final- 
ly brought  to  a  close  in  1836,  when  the  foundations  of  the 
new  wing  were  laid.  During  the  years  in  which  the  build- 
ing was  in  process  of  erection,  the  devout  annalist  informs 
us  that  God,  in    His  fatherly  providence  so  tempered   the 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  23 


bitter  with  the  sweet,  that  although  new  trials  came  to  pre- 
vent our  fathers  from  being  too  much  elated  by  prosperity, 
new  joys  succeeded  lest  they  should  be  too  much  cast 
down  by  adversity ;  and  this,  in  so  loving  and  merciful  a 
way,  that  the  dark  and  troublous  days  were  always  out- 
numbered by  those  of  sunshine  and  peace. 


NOTE— It  will,  no  doubt,  interest  many  readers  of  the  "Letters"  to 
peruse  a  page  from  the  earliest  Catalogue  of  France  we  have  been  able  to 
procure,  that  makes  mention  of  "Collegium  Kentuckeiense  ad  S.  Mariam 
tt  convictus,"  ineunte  MDCCCXXXVI. 

• 
R.  P.  Petrus  Chazelle,  Y.  Rector. 

P.  Thomas  Legouais,  Minister,  Magister  Novitiorum,  Prof.  Math.,  etc. 

P.  Gulielmus  Murphy,  Professor,  etc. 

P.  Nicolaus  Petit,  Primus  praefectus  morum,  etc. 

P.  Nicolaus  Point,  Praefectus  studiorum,  etc. 

P.  Simon  Fouche,  Prof.  Math. ;  praefectus  morum,  etc. 

P.  Xaverius  (Evremond)  Herissart,  Prof,  linguae  Graeeae,  etc. 

P.  Vitalis  Gilles,  Praefectus  Spiritualis :  Professor  linguae  Gallicae,  etc. 

Philippus  Corne,  Ad  omnia. 

Philippus  Ledore,  Coquus. 


24  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Up  to  the  period  our  sketch  has  now  reached,  St.  Mary's 
enjoyed,  only  by  privilege,  the  title  of  College  ;  but  in  1836, 
after  a  sharp  contest,  in  the  Legislature,  between  our  friends 
and  our  enemies,  it  received  its  charter  as  a  University. 
This  victory  was,  in  great  measure,  due  to  the  influence  of 
Fr.  Murphy,  who  had  lately  arrived  in  Kentucky,  and  who 
devoted  himself  unsparingly  to  promote  the  good  of  the 
College. 

But  it  was  not  only  by  thus  perfecting  what  our  Fathers 
had  already  undertaken,  that  He  for  whom  alone  they  toiled, 
gave  His  blessing  to  their  unassuming  labors :  in  His 
providence  He  destined  for  the  little  colony  of  St.  Mary's  a 
still  wider,  and  far  distant  field  of  action.  For  it  He  re- 
served the  honor  of  sending  the  first  pioneers  of  the  new 
Society  to  a  land  which  had  been  crimsoned  with  some  of 
the  noblest  blood  of  the  old,  to  inherit  the  mantle  which 
had  fallen  from  a  Brebeuf  and  a  Lalemant,  as  they  #rose 
into  Heaven  amid  the  whirlwind  of  savage  persecution,  and 
to  revive  their  spirit  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  guarded  so 
jealously  the  precious  deposit  of  their  glorious  bodies. 

Mgr.  Bourget,  the  zealous  and  devoted  Bishop  of  Mon- 
treal, ardently  wishing  to  see  the  Society  once  more  at  work 
in  its  heavenly-appointed  vineyard,  invited  Rev.  Fr.  Cha- 
zelle,  in  the  year  1839,  to  conduct  the  annual  ecclesiastical 
retreat  for  the  priests  of  the  diocese. 


Nfiw  York  and  Canada  Mission.  25 


His  presence  awoke,  throughout  the  whole  of  Canada, 
fond  and  saintly  memories  which  long  had  slumbered. 
Forthwith,  the  brothers  of  those  heroes  that  had  died  in 
blessing  the  land,  and  blessed  the  land  in  dying,  were  eag- 
erly pressed  to  re-enter  the  country  ;  and  no  later  than  1842 
this  new  branch  of  our  mission  was  founded.  So  desirous 
to  see  the  Fathers  at  once  established  in  his  diocese  was 
Mgr.  Bourget,  whose  attachment  to  the  Society  has  ever 
displayed  itself  in  an  unceasing  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of 
its  members,  that  he  could  not  wait  till  a  suitable  building 
should  be  erected,  but  kindly  interested  in  their  behalf  the 
pious  Mr.  Rodier,  then  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Bar, 
but  some  years  later  the  still  more  distinguished  Mayor  of 
Montreal.  This  worthy  representative  of  genuine  catholic 
charity  declared  to  the  Fathers  that  he  would  consider  it  a 
personal  favor  if  they  would  accept  half  of  his  own  house, 
to  be  their  home  as  long  as  they  wished.  What  was  offered 
with  such  noble  disinterestedness  was  received  with  heart- 
felt gratitude.  As  the  spacious  mansion  had  already  been 
partitioned  off  into  two,  the  Fathers  soon  after  took  posses- 
sion of  their  quarters,  and,  on  Sept.  9th,  1843,  gave  the 
habit  of  the  Society  to  our  first  Canadian  novice.  This 
favored  subject,  in  less  than  a  month,  gave,  in  his  turn,  the 
warm  embrace  of  the  Society  to  a  fellow-novice,  and  both 
together,  began  the  ascent  of  the  rugged  road  of  perfection, 


26  New  York  and  Canada  Mission-. 


helped  by  each  other's  example.*     Of  course,  our  ordinary 
means  of  subsistence  were  not,  as  yet,  secured,  but 

"He,  who  stills  the  raven's  clam'rous  nest, 
And  decks  the  lily  fair  in  flow'ry  pride," 

provided,  no  less  bountifully,  for  the  well-being  of  his  ser- 
vants. The  alms  of  the  faithful  were  abundant,  and  if  want 
were  occasionally  felt,  it  served  only  to  give  zest  to  succeed- 
ing plenty.  Such  being  the  case  it  is  hard  to  understand 
how  it  became  noised  abroad,  through  the  city,  that  the 
fathers  were  dying  of  hunger.  The  rumor  came  to  the  ears 
of  our  best  of  friends,  his  Lordship,  the  Bishop,  and  grieved 
him  to  the  heart.  He  started  without  delay  for  our  resi- 
dence, and  calling  for  Fr.  Luiset,  the  Master  of  novices, 
asked  him,  in  a  voice  in  which  loving  tenderness  struggled 
with  paternal  severity,  how  he  could  have  had  so  little 
confidence  in  him,  as  not  to  inform  him  of  the  straits  to 
which  the  community  was  reduced.  Fr.  Luiset  was  at  a 
loss  for  a  reply  : — a  few  moments  however,  cleared  up  the 
mystery  ;  the  fears  of  the  good  Bishop  were  dispelled,  and 
had  he  sat  down  with  the  community  at  the  next  meal,  he 
would  have  been  convinced,  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt, 


*  Respect  for  the  feelings  of  the  living  banished  from  the  text 
the  names  of  these  first-fruits  of  the  new  Society  in  Canada ;  but  here  in 
the  foot-notes  the  desire  to  be  useful  to  future  annalists,  allows  us  to 
mention,  the  names  of  Fr.  Regnier,  now  "operarius"  in  Troy ;  and  of 
R.  Fr.  H.  Hudon  our  kind  Rector  at  St.  Francis  Xavier's. 


*»SW»  OOLUMg  tlBiUK* 
«"W  HIM,  *™ 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  27 


of  the  want  of  foundation  of  the  rumor,  and  seen,  to  his 
great  satisfaction,  that,  owing  to  the  charity  of  their  friends, 
they  were  far  from  starving.  Many  more  must  have  been 
the  trials  of  paternal  solicitude  on  the  part  of  Monseigneur, 
and  many  too  the  pleasing  incidents  that  occurred,  during 
the  year,  when  the  quiet  occupation  of  the  Jesuit  novices 
ran  side  by  side  with  the  already  busy  life  of  the  future 
magistrate — church  and  state  in  such  close  and  harmonious 
relations  ; — but,  owing  to  our  distance  from  the  source  of 
information,  we  are  forced  to  leave  the  record  of  these  facts, 
as  well  as  the  heroic  days  of  our  college  of  St.  Mary's,  in 
Montreal,  to  some  of  our  more  favored  brothers  of  the 
North.*     We,  ourselves,  however,  still   love  to  remember 


*A  little  anecdote  has  been  related  to  us,  the  artless  simplicity 
of  which  is  too  charming  to  be  lost.  "Shortly  after  breakfast  every  day 
during  the  summer  months,"  says  one  of  the  novices  of  those  times,  now 
a  venerable  Father,  "the  bell  was  rung  for  'Manualia,'  and  at  once  we 
three  novices  repaired  to  our  little  garden,  to  dig  potatoes  for  the  com- 
munity dinner.  The  task  was  almost  Herculean,  for  the  good  brother 
charged  with  planting  the  potatoes  had  a  favorite  theory,  based  on  what 
principle  of  horticulture  he  never  told  us,  that  the  deeper  they  were  sunk 
into  the  ground,  the  more  plentiful  would  be  the  crop.  Accordingly  he 
had  procured  a  stout  pole,  about  six  feet  long,  and,  applying  it  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  a  modern  pile-driver,  had  succeeded  in  burying  the 
forlorn  seedling  as  far  out  of  sight  as  possible;  trusting  perhaps  that 
their  proximity  to  the  central  fires  of  the  earth  would  keep  them  from 
freezing,  should  Spring,  as  was  sometimes  the  case  in  those  regions,  prove 
rather  backward ;  and  the  ice  in  the  St.  Lawrence  refuse  to  forsake  its 
adopted  home  till  Summer  was  on  its  heels. 

"The  good  brother  took  great  delight  in  superintending  the  labors  of 
the  poor  novices,  and  pointing  out  the^exact  spot  in  which  his  novel  imple- 
ment of  husbandry  had  descended ;  and  when  any  of  us,  having  dug  a 


28  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


with  what  fatherly  affection  the  venerable  Mr.  Rodier  wel- 
comed to  his  bountiful  table,  only  a  few  years  ago,  all  the 
novices  from  the  Sault-au-Recollet;  with  what  pleasure  he 
spoke  of  the  days  when  his  house  was  our  only  novitiate, 
and  assured  us,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that  they  were  the 
happiest  of  his  life.  May  the  eternal  Father  repay  his 
charity  a  hundred  fold  : 

The  stranger  and  the  poor  by  God  are  sent 
And  what  to  these  we  give,  to  God  is  lent.  * 

That  hearts  so  loving  and  devoted  as  those  of  our  gen- 
erous friends  really  were,  should  crowd  around  the  cradle 
of  the  Canada  Mission,  when,  without  them,  it  could  not 

ditch  some  three  feet  in  depth  and  two  in  width  without  even  the  sign  of 
a  potato,  would  turn  to  him  in  despair,  and,  pointing  to  the  small  moun- 
tain beside  us,  monument  of  our  labor,  ask  imploringly,  'how  much  far- 
ther down?'  he  would  deliberately  gauge,  with  his  eye,  the  heap  of  clay 
at  his  feet,  and  then,  in  his  most  soothing  voice  reply,  that  we  must  be 
near  them  now ;  they  could  not  be  more  than  two  feet  deeper. 

"Under  such  circumstances,  you  may  imagine  how  great  was  our  de- 
light to  see,  on  the  other  side  of  the  low  rail  fence  that  divided  the  gar- 
den, good  Mr.  Rodier  coming  into  his  orchard.  We  were  not  disappointed  : 
the  first  thing  our  kind  neighbor  TV  ould  do,  would  be  to  shake  down 
some  of  the  largest  and  ripest  apples  that  hung  on  his  trees ;  then,  lean- 
ing for  a  few  seconds  on  our  fence,  he  Would  exclaim :  'Pauvres  freres, 
pauvres  freres !  Here,  my  children,  you  must  be  tired  by  this  time  ;  you 
have  dug  enough  for  this  morning ;'  and  with  these  words  he  would  toss 
us  the  rosy-cheeked  fruits.     Oh  !  how  pretty  they  looked,  in  comparison 

*  Homer  says : 

Ilfit):  yap  J'.o;  elrro  a—avrzc 
Eslvm  r=  -zor/oi  «.  Odys.  VI.  208. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  29 


have  long  survived  its  birth,  was  owing,  no  doubt,  in  great 
measure,  to  the  prayers  of  the  saintly  men  who,  at  this 
time,  successively  filled  the  office  of  Master  of  Novices, 
The  line  began  with  Father  Luiset,  already  mentioned,  who, 
in  fact,  may  be  said  to  have  taken  actual  possession  of  Can- 
ada in  the  name  of  the  Society.  In  1843,  on  the  feast  of 
the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus,  the  very  day  after  his  arrival  at 
Montreal  with  some  other  Fathers  from  France,  he  preached, 
at  the  invitation  of  Monseigneur  Bourget,  in  the  grand 
cathedral,  since  destroyed  by  fire.  He  chose  for  his  text 
the  words  of  St.  Paul  :  "In  nomine  Jesu  omne  genu  flecta- 
tur,  coelestium,  terrestrium,  et  infernorum"  (Phil.  2.  10.), 
and,  by  the  strain  after  strain  of  fervid  eloquence  which  he 
poured  forth  on  the  glories  of  the  Redeemer,  completely 
won  the  hearts  of  his  vast  audience. 

The  knowledge  of  Christ,  and  Him  crucified,  which  the 
zealous  missionary  had  unfolded  to  his  hearers  in  the  pop- 
ulous city,  he  afterwards  diffused  through  the  villages  and 
hamlets  for  miles  around,  with  so  much  unction  and  vigor  as 


with  the  spectral  potatoes  that  had  been  haunting  our  minds  so  long. 
Fr.  Master  allowed  us  'Deo  Gratias,'  and  had  given  general  permission 
to  eat  whatever  Mr.  Rodier  might  think  proper  to  offer.  The  good 
brother  was  the  only  one  that  seemed  crest-fallen  at  our  leaving  off  when 
bushels  of  potatoes  were  so  near.  To  console  him,  we  would  offer,  with 
generous  magnanimity,  to  the  author  of  our  woes,  a  share  in  our  good 
fortunes;  asking,  in  return,  only  one  thing,  that  next  Spring,  when  about 
to  plant  his  potatoes,  he  would  use  a  somewhat  shorter  pole  for  a  spade." 


3<3  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


to  electrify  those  who  came  within  reach  of  his  burning 
words,  and  to  cause  all,  priests  and  laity,  actually  to  clamor 
for  the  entrance  of  the  Fathers  into  their  parishes. 

From  his  apostolic  journeys,  in  which  he  had  scattered 
broadcast  over  an  extensive  portion  of  the  Lord's  vineyard, 
the  fertile  seed  of  the  Divine  Word,  he  returned  to  the 
secluded  garden  where  bloomed  the  Almighty's  flowers  of 
predilection ;  to  the  care  of  these,  few  though  they  were, 
he  devoted  his  unwearied  attention.  To  his  novices,  Father 
Luiset  displayed  the  same  image  of  the  Redeemer,  that  he 
had  exhibited  in  the  cities  and  the  villages,  and,  as  they 
were  called  to  the  perfect  imitation  of  the  divine  Model,  he 
descended  into  every  detail,  and  showed  by  his  solid  con- 
ferences, and  by  the  example  of  his  daily  life,  how  the 
spirit  of  the  cross  was  to  actuate  their  every  thought,  word 
and  deed. 

But  nothing,  perhaps,  proved  more  conclusively  that 
what  he  had  so  long  preached  was  really  from  the  abun- 
dance of  the  heart,  and  that  the  cross  had  struck  deep  roots 
therein,  than  his  edifying  conduct  under  the  terrible  affliction 
which,  during  the  third  year  of  his  office  as  Master  of 
Novices,  God  was  pleased  to  send  him.  An  operation 
performed  by  a  celebrated  oculist  for  the  cure  of  some 
slight  ailment  of  his  eyes,  resulted  in  total  blindness  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.     This  severe  trial,  far  from  wringing 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  31 


from  him  the  least  complaint,  only  caused  him  to  ex- 
claim with  patient  Job :  "If  we  have  received  good 
things  at. the  hand  of  God,  why  should  we  not  receive 
evil?"  <Job.  2.  10.)  He  did  not  even  yield  to  the  subtile 
temptation  that  he  would  thenceforth  be  less  able  to  work 
for  God's  glory,  but  assured  that 

"God  doth  not  need 
Either  man's  works,  or  His  own  gifts ;  who  best 
Bear  His  mild  )roke,  they  serve  Him  best,"* 

he  reposed  with  such  perfect  resignation  on  the  divine  will, 
that,  though  frequently  pressed  to  make  a  novena  for  the 
recovery  of  his  sight,  he  constantly  refused,  saying:  "It  is 
God's  holy  will  I  should  be  blind,  and  God's  will  is  mine." 
The  truth  was,  he  scarcely  looked  upon  his  affliction  as  an 
evil  at  all,  and,  charmed  at  being  no  longer  disturbed  by 
the  sight  of  created  things,  he  centred  his  gaze  more  stead- 
ily than  ever  on  the  Creator,  and  drank  in  with  fewer 
distractions  the  vision  of  his  God. 

But  if  the  bodies  of  men  had  vanished,  with  the  whole 
visible  world,  forever  from  his  sight,  their  souls  still  ap- 
peared to  him  of  priceless  value,  and  such  was  his  zeal  to 
rescue  these  from  Satan's  power,  that  he  easily  overcame 
all  the  obstacles  his  blindness  placed  in  his  way.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  his  three  years  as  Master  of  Novices,  he  was  sent 


*  Milton — Ode  on  his  blindness. 


32  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


to  Quebec,  where  he  preached  with  his  wonted  fire.  Such 
was  his  conviction  of  the  responsibility  of  this  apostolic 
duty,  that  he  delivered  no  sermons  but  such  as  he  had  care- 
fully written  out  before,  and  which  he  still  remembered,  or 
had  read  to  him  before  ascending  the  pulpit-  The  clear 
sequence  of  ideas  that  runs  through  these  sermons,  some 
of  which  are  still  extant,  the  striking  reflections  they  em- 
body, and  the  beautiful  language  in  which  they  are  ex- 
pressed, prove  the  thoughtful  care  and  labor  expended  on 
their  composition  ;  while  the  glow  of  divine  love  that  ani- 
mates the  whole,  shows  the  man  of  prayer  clothed  with 
the  learning  of  the  scholar  and  the  eloquence  of  the  orator. 

However,  to  do  good  to  souls  then,  he  no  longer  needed 
such  preparation  ;  for  he  had  already  preached  most  forci- . 
bly  even  before  uttering  one  word  of  his  prepared  sermon, 
and  all  hearts  were  deeply  moved  by  beholding  the  zeal- 
ous old  man  still  so  vigorous,  but  obliged  to  be  led  by 
the  hand  to  the  foot  of  the  pulpit,  then  slowly  groping  his 
way  up  the  steps,  and  finally  turning  his  sightless  eyes  on 
his  audience,  hushed  in  the  deepest  attention :  no  more 
efficacious  exhortation  could  be  given — to  rejoice  in  the 
midst  of  affliction,  and  to  kiss  the  hand  that  chastiseth. 

After  a  year  spent  in  Quebec  he  returned  to  the  novitiate, 
in  the  capacity  of  Socius  of  the  Master  of  Novices,  and 
prevented  from  ascending  the  pulpit,  as  his  superiors  judged 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  33 


it  better  for  him  not  to  preach  any  more  by  word  of  mouth, 
his  zeal  sought  an  outlet  in  his  assiduous  attendance  in  the 
confessional.  His  exactness  to  follow  in  this,  as  in  all  other 
respects,  the  least  prescription  of  our  holy  rules,  nay  what 
he  considered  to  be  their  spirit,  even  when  the  letter  was 
silent  amounted  almost  to  scruple,  and  gave  rise  to  the 
following  amusing  incident  : 

It  was  Fr.  Luiset's  custom  to  be  at  his  post  especially 
about  6  o'clock  in  the  evening  to  receive  men  on  their 
return  from  work.  In  summer,  of  course,  it  was  light  at 
that  hour,  but  as  winter  came  on,  knowing  it  must  then  be 
getting  dark  he  called  one  of  the  novices  and  bade  him 
place  a  candle  near  the  confessional,  saying  it  was  not 
becoming  for  one  of  ours  to  hear  anyone's  confession,  in 
his  room,  after  nightfall  without  a  light.  The  young  relig- 
ious not  quite  yet  as  blind  in  his  obedience,  as  the  good 
father  in  his  sight,  was  at  a  loss  how  to  apply  this  to  the 
case  of  the  exact  servant  of  God,  and  fearing  some  accident 
from  fire,  ran  off  in  haste,  as  a  true  novice,  to  unbosom 
himself  in  his  perplexity  to  Father  Master.  His  spiritual 
Father  smiling  told  him  he  might  get  the  candle,  take  it 
unlit  to  the  father's  room  and  retire.  The  good  novice  did 
as  directed  and  was  leaving  the  room,  when  to  his  surprise, 
Fr.  Luiset  solemnly  said  :  "Bring  hither  the  candle  and  put 
it  beside  me."     Prompt  obedience  this  time  on  the  part  of 


34  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


the  novice,  but  still  with  a  vague  fear  for  the  consequences. 
And  well  he  might  fear  ;  for  the  precise  old  man,  taking 
hold  of  the  candlestick,  deliberately  ran  his  hand  along  the 
candle  towards  the  wick.  Fain  would  the  trembling  novice 
have  lighted  the  taper,  even  at  the  eleventh  hour  ;  but  the 
eleventh  hour  unfortunately  was  a  very  short  one  : — it  was 
already  over;  Fr.  Luiset  had  reached  the  top,  and  feeling 
no  heat,  turned  sharply  around  on  this  remorse-stricken 
culprit  and  exclaimed  with  all  his  animation :  "What ! 
brother,  is  it  possible  you  wish  to  deceive  me !  Have  you 
no  more  respect  for  our  holy  rules?"  The  speechless  novice 
suddenly  felt  as  if  he  would  just  then  like  to  unbosom 
himself  again  to  Father  Master  and,  with  all  possible  haste 
flung  out  of  the  room. 

Fr.   Luiset's   unbounded  respect  for  even  the  least  rule, 
naturally  led  him  to  observe  with  extraordinary  precision 
that  continual  mortification  in  all  things,  and  that  applica- 
tion to  spiritual  pursuits  on  which  St.  Ignatius  so  repeatedly 
insists.     That  this  mortification   extended   itself  to  his  re  - 
freshment    of  the   body,  and   that   even   at   his   meals    his 
spirit  was  far  away  from  the  earthly  objects  around  him, 
the  same  novice  had  daily  occasion  to  witness.     Instead  of 
going  through  some  of  the  usual  "experimenta"   of  our 
novitiates  (which  circumstances  then  rendered  impossible) 
he  was  appointed  to  bring  the  blind  father  his  breakfast, 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  35 


and  help  him  to  what  he  might  need.  Whether  the  novice 
still  felt  a  little  chafed  on  the  subject  of  the  father's  scrupulous 
exactitude,  and  was  anxious  to  overcome  a  too  natural  im- 
pulse by  a  generous  revenge,  or  whether,  in  reading  the 
life  of  St.  Ignatius,  he  had  been  more  struck  by  that  part 
which  narrates  the  guileless  tricks  of  Fr.  Ribadineira  on 
our  Holy  Founder,  than  by  some  other  portions  of  the  same 
life,  we  dare  not  decide ;  but  certain  it  is  that  he  observed 
with  surprise  how  Fr.  Luiset  had  prescribed  to  himself  a 
very  limited  amount  of  daily  food,  and  that  this  limit  he 
never  overstepped.  The  abstemious  religious  would  cut  the 
small  slice  of  dry  bread  handed  to  him,  into  five  or  six  still 
smaller  squares,  and  then,  seated  at  some  distance  from  the 
table,  would  alternately,  with  one  hand  slowly  raise  to  his 
mouth  a  spoonful  of  coffee,  and  with  the  other  one  of  the 
morsels  of  bread :  while,  at  each  mouthful,  he  would  turn 
his  countenance  towards  heaven,  whence  every  good  gift- 
descends.  The  charitable  attendant  thought  with  dismay  on 
the  sorry  plight  to  which  his  own  young  fibres  and  ardent 
spirits  would  soon  be  reduced  if  allowed  only  so  scanty'a 
supply  of  "nitrogenous  aliments ;"  and,  convinced  that 
such  lenten  diet  was  utterly  insufficient  to  repair  the  daily 
waste  of  bone  and  sinew  in  the  blind  but  vehement  old  man, 
he  so  far  presumed  on  his  charge's  infirmity  as,  the  moment 
one  mouthful  of  bread  disappeared,  quietly  to  replace  it  by 


36  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


another,  and  as  the  coffee  gradually  diminished  in  the  cup, 
noiselessly  to  pour  in  some  more. 

The  unsuspecting  Father,  who  was  always  very  exact  in 
eating  whatever  he  had  cut  for  himself,  and  sipping  his 
coffee,  spoonful  after  spoonful,  till  all  was  gone,  kept  on  at 
his  meal,  as  usual,  wholly  occupied  with  other  thoughts. 
Perhaps  even  then  he  was  reflecting  on  the  miraculous 
multiplication  of  the  loaves  and  fishes ;  but  if  so,  his  mind 
was  so  intent  on  the  goodness  of  God  in  this  miracle  as  to 
take  no  notice  of  the  present  multiplication  of  bread  and 
coffee,  by  which  he  was,  so  unwittingly,  being  benefitted. 
At  last,  however,  through  sheer  fatigue  at  raising  the  spoon 
to  his  lips  so  much  oftener  than  usual,  he  turned  quietly  to 
his  kind-hearted  attendant,  and  remarked  :  "Cette  tasse  est 
bien  grande,  mon  frere."  The  novice  did  not  attempt  to 
deny  the  fact,  but  was  warned  by  this  how  far  he  could  go 
in  his  charitable  fraud  without  awakening  suspicion  :  and 
so  frequently  did  he  ever  after  (with  permission  of  the 
Master  of  Novices  j  regulate  his  perpetual  miracle,  that  he 
had  time  to  see  the  poor  blind  Father  actually  thriving 
under  his  treatment. 

Father  Luiset  continued  to  edify  the  Novices  by  his 
exact  observance  of  the  rules,  and  his  spirit  of  mortification 
till  his  death  in  1855,  at  the  age  of  67. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  37 


The  second  equally  saintly  man  to  whose  prayers  and 
3ioly  life  the  early  days  of  the  Canada  Mission  owed  so 
many  heavenly  blessings  was  Father  George  Schneider, 
who  had  succeeded  Fr.  Luiset  as  Master  of  Novices,  in 
1848.  Unable,  for  want  of  space,  to  dwell  at  any  length 
on  the  life  of  this  fervent  religious,  we  give,  in  a  word,  its 
correct  epitome  when  we  say  that  it  was  one  continued  act 
of  devotion  to  St.  Joseph,  and  of  unbounded  confidence  in 
this  holy  Patriarch,  repaid  by  countless  favors  of  all  kinds. 
Were  we  deficient  in  example  to  prove  that  St.  Joseph  is 
the  same  as  in  the  past  to  those  that  fly  to  him,  the  exam- 
ple of  this  devout  Father  alone  would  be  sufficient. 

He  first  entrusted  to  this  holy  Patriarch  the  care  of  the 
whole  house,  even  down  to  the  pantry  itself;  and  from  the 
manner  in  which  the  faithful  steward  discharged  this  last 
part  of  his  commission  we  may  judge  how  he  fulfilled  the 
rest.  Occasionally  indeed  instead  of  the  expected  sound 
of  the  breakfast-bell  the  silvery  voice  of  Fr.  Schneider 
would  greet  the  ears  of  the  novices,  as  he  stepped  into  their 
room,  and  told  them,  with  a  smile,  that  although  they  had 
not  yet  taken  a  vow  of  poverty,  the  Almighty  was  pleased 
to  try  them  a  little  on  the  score  of  that  virtue  even  then  ; 
that  they  would  have  to  wait  a  while  for  breakfast,  as  there 
was  not  a  mouthful  to  eat  in  the  house :  but  that  it  would 
not  be  long ;  St.  Joseph  had  never  failed  them  yet.     On 


0 

38  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


such  occasions,  the  good  novices  were  only  too  g"lad  to 
suffer  something'  in  view  of  their  future  vow,  and  with 
perhaps  a  short  invocation  to  St.  Joseph  that  he  would  not 
tarry  too  long,  cheerfully  resumed  their  mental  repast,  while 
awaiting  that  which  was  to  refresh  the  body.  Fr.  Schneider 
had  spoken  truly :  they  had  not  to  wait  long  ;  for  never,  no, 
not  once,  during  all  the  years  he  was  Master  of  Novices, 
did  an  hour  pass  ere  in  came  from  some  one,  often  they 
knew  not  from  whom,  a  supply  of  provisions  sufficient  for 
the  community. 

Having  thus  secured,  forever,  food  for  his  novices,  the 
next  step  was  to  procure  novices.  Fr.  Schneider  had  seen 
with  deep  concern  how  few  vocations  had  as  yet  developed, 
since  the  arrival  of  the  Fathers  in  Montreal,  and  looking 
with  anxiety  to  the  future,  he  referred  the  matter  to  his 
heavenly  counsellor.  The  result  was  a  recommendation  to 
the  novices  to  unite  with  Fr.  Master,  during  the  nine  days 
preceding  the  feast  of  St.  Joseph,  in  a  fervent  novena  for 
the  obtaining  of  new  members.  The  effect  of  this  appeal 
to  the  holy  Patriarch  was  almost  miraculous ;  for  whereas, 
previously,  only  two  or  three  scholastic  novices  had  been 
received  each  year,  after  the  novena  four  or  five  begged 
admittance  into  the  Society  before  the  month  was  over,  and 
during  the  following  month  the  number  ran  up  to  eight. 
Ever  since  then  the  novitiate  has  received  a  very  fair  yearly 


Neil    York  and  Canada  Mission.  39 


increase,  and  of  late  years,  after  a  general  novena  to  the 
same  heavenly  Procurator,  made  by  order  of  Rev.  Father 
Bapst,  in  all  the  houses  of  the  mission,  a  most  extraordina- 
ry supply  of  new  members. 

Fr.  Schneider  knowing  that  he  was  far  from  having  ex- 
hausted St.  Joseph's  liberality,  was,  on  his  part,  far  from 
desisting  in  his  petitions.  He  had  obtained  food  and  sub- 
jects ;  there  was  still  wanting  a  novitiate.  To  build  this  he 
had  not  a  single  dollar,  and,  moreover,  knew  not  where  to 
find  one ;  but  his  generous  Treasurer  knew  where  they 
could  be  had  in  abundance.  Permission  to  begin  the  build- 
ing had  been  refused  until  enough  money  had  been  collected 
to  cover  all  expenses.  Fr.  Schneider  starts  for  Quebec,  on  a 
mission  of  some  weeks'  duration  ;  returns  at  the  end  of  that 
time  with  the  required  amount.  The  year  1853  saw  the 
completion  of  the  large  Novitiate  at  Sault-au-Recollet, 
about  eight  miles  from  Montreal ;  and  Father  Schneider, 
through  gratitude  towards  its  heavenly  Founder,  and  to 
secure  its  future  prosperity,  placed  it  under  his  invocation. 
The  novices  had  about  a  year  before  left  the  home  where 
they  had  been  so  charitably  sheltered  for  so  many  years, 
and,  calling  down  many  blessings  upon  their  benefac- 
tors, taken  up  their  abode  in  St.  Mary's  College,  which  had 
been  in  successful  operation  since  Sept.  20th,  1848.  Now 
that  their  own  home  was  ready  to  receive  them,  they  re- 


40  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


paired  with   joy  from  the  crowded  city  to  their  peaceful 
retreat  amid  the  fields. 

These  favors,  great  though  they  were,  were  far  from  be- 
ing all  that  Fr.  Schneider  owed  to  his  glorious  Patron.  The 
devout  religious  saw  with  deep  grief  the  seminary  of  some 
Protestant  sect  just  in  front  of  our  first  novitiate,  and  re- 
marked that  it  was  a  pity  to  have  the  work  of  Satan  in  such- 
close  proximity  to  the  work  of  God.  He  complained  of  it 
to  St.  Joseph,  during  the  month  of  March,  the  period  of 
the  year  when  all  his  special  requests  were  made  ;  the  month 
was  hardly  over,  when  the  building  was  sold,  at  a  great 
bargain  to  the  Catholics,  and  became  St.  Patrick's  Hospital 
In  later  years,  he  set  his  heart  on  obtaining  a  certain  piece 
of  ground,  near  our  College  in  Montreal,  to  build  thereon 
a  church  in  honor  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  He  prayed  to  St. 
Joseph,  and  that  very  piece  of  ground  was  presented  to  him 
by  one  of  our  kind  benefactors.  He  often  had  obdurate 
sinners  to  convert :  he  entrusted  their  conversion  to  St. 
Joseph,  and  such  was  his  certainty  of  success  that,  on  one 
occasion,  speaking  of  one  of  them,  he  exclaimed  with  sud- 
den animation:  "He  is  mine  to-night." 

This  short  account  of  Fr.  Schneider's  devotion  to  St. 
Joseph  and  of  a  few  of  the  favors  with  which  it  was  re- 
warded, forestalls  all  necessity  of  adding  a  word  about 
his  sanctity.    St  Theresa  tells  us  in  her  autobiography,  that 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  41 

she  never  knew  anyone  who  had  a  true  devotion  to  St. 
Joseph,  who  was  not  advanced  by  it  in  virtue.  Now  if  such 
be  the  case,  as  it  most  undoubtedly  is,  we  may  easily  imag- 
ine what  a  height  of  perfection  Father  Schneider  attained, 
when  his  whole  life  was  impregnated  with  so  constant  and 
so  filial  a  devotion  to  the  foster  father  of  Sanctity  itself. 
St.  Joseph  who  had  been  his  consoler  in  life,  smoothed 
likewise  his  passage  to  eternity :  and  Fr.  Schneider's  death 
in  1868  was,  like  that  of  the  Faithful  Servant  himself,  the 
bright  dawn  of  eternal  day. 

Not  to  sever  the  cord  of  triple  strand,  of  charity  on  the 
one  side,  and  of  zeal  and  gratitude  on  the  other,  that  linked 
the  early  days  of  the  Canada  Mission  one  with  the  other, 
and  bound  them  all  to  Rev.  Father  Chazelle,  we  have  con- 
siderably outrun  our  dates.  When  most  of  these  results 
just  described  were  actually  realized,  this  indefatigable  la- 
borer had  already  been  called  to  his  rest.  He  had  returned 
to  Kentucky,  in  October,  1839,  an<^  was»  tne  following 
year,  succeeded  in  his  double  office  of  Superior  and  Presi- 
dent of  St.  Mary's  by  Rev.  Fr.  W.  Murphy.  Soon  afterwards 
he  departed  on  matters  of  business  for  Rome,  and  returned 
again  to  the  country  of  his  adoption  as  Superior  of  the 
little  band  of  missionaries,  including  Fathers  Tellier,  F. 
Martin,  D.  Duranquet,  Luiset  and  three  lay  brothers,  which, 
at  the  request  of  Mgr.  Bourget  left  Europe  in  1842  for  the 


42  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Canada  branch  of  our  mission,  and  was  occupied,  prior  to 
the  erection  of  St.  Mary's  College,  in  our  residence  of  the 
Assumption  at  Sandwich,  and  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  at  La 
Prairie. 

As  Rev.  Father  Chazelle  now  ceases  to  figure  in  our 
sketch,  we  cannot  dismiss  his  name  without  a  few  words  on 
the  death  of  this  saintly  religious,  the  father  of  our  mission. 
In  the  Summer  of  1845,  Very  Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger,  and  his 
companion,  Rev.  Fr.  Hus,  extended  their  visit  to  the  Indian 
Missions  of  Upper  Canada. 

The  good  missionaries  in  these  regions,  deprived  in 
great  measure  of  the  community-life  of  the  Society,  and 
almost  perfect  strangers  to  those  family  joys  it  knows  so 
well  how  to  foster,  had  looked  forward  with  unbounded 
delight  to  this  visit,  as  to  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  for  their 
apostolic  labors.  A  letter  written  some  months  later  by 
Fr.  P.  Point,  says  that  when  they  actually  saw  among  them 
these  representatives  of  the  head  of  the  Society,  they  gave 
themselves  up  unreservedly  to  the  joys  of  the  present  and 
hopes  of  the  future.  But  it  adds  :  "Will  not,  perhaps  these 
last  prove  an  illusion  ?  For  we  are  not  wont,  we  children 
of  St.  Ignatius,  long  to  bask  in  the  sunshine."  The  good 
Father  was  right  in  his  apprehensions,  and  this  very  letter 
was  to  bring  to  V.  R.  F.  Boulanger  the  first  news  of  the 
sickness  and  death  of  him  on  whom  most  of  their  hopes 
for  the  future  were  based. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  43 


At  the  conclusion  of  the  visit  it  was  determined  to  push 
the  labors  of  the  Society  more  to  the  North-West,  and 
revive  if  possible  the  old  settlements  of  our  first  Fathers  in 
the  vicinity  of  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  Fr.  Chazelle  was  deputed 
to  visit  that  part  of  the  country,  and  to  decide  on  the  pos- 
sibility of  founding  a  residence  there  to  be  the  nucleus  of 
future  missionary  labors  through  the  surrounding  country. 

On  the  8th  of  August,  full  of  joy  at  the  prospect  of 
opening  a  new  field  for  God's  glory,  Fr.  Chazelle  started 
for  Detroit,  where  he  was  to  take  the  steamboat  for  Macki- 
naw, and  there  find  another  which  would  carry  him  to  the 
Sault.  Having  arrived  at  Mackinaw,  he  found  no  vessel 
ready  to  start,  so  he  travelled  on  as  far  as  Green  Bay  to  see 
if  it  might  not  be  possible  to  start  a  permanent  residence 
among  the  tribes  bordering  on  the  Riviere  du  Loup — a  river 
along  which,  almost  two  hundred  years  before,  Fr.  Mar- 
quette had  travelled  in  the  voyage  which  led  to  the  discov- 
ery of  the  Mississippi.  The  very  day  after  his  arrival  at 
Green  Bay,  Fr.  Chazelle  had  a  slight  attack  of  fever,  which 
increased  to  such  an  extent  that,  shortly  after,  he  was  forced 
to  take  to  his  bed.  While  in  this  state  of  suffering,  he 
heard  that  a  steamboat  was  on  the  point  of  starting  for 
Mackinaw.  At  this  news  it  was  impossible  to  keep  him 
back  : — sick  as  he  was,  he  literally  leaped  from  his  bed  into 
the  saddle,  and  hastened  towards  the  wharf.     But  God,  for 


44 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


whose  glory  he  sought  these  new  fatigues,  was  satisfied 
with  his  good  will ;  and  the  same  loving  Master  who,  years 
before,  in  Kentucky,  had  sent  him  forth  on  an  errand  of 
charity  that  he  might  not  be  an  eye-witness  of  the  calamity 
that  was  to  befall  his  flock,  this  time,  with  like  fatherly 
providence,  prevented  his  setting  out ;  lest,  as  his  end  was 
approaching,  he  who  had  been  an  angel  of  consolation  at 
so  many  death-beds,  should  himself  die  where  he  must 
needs  be  deprived  of  the  last  consolations  of  his  religion. 

Despite  all  his  haste,  Father  Chazelle  learned  to  his  sor- 
row, that  he  was  too  late ;  the  boat  had  already  started, 
and  he  had  no  alternative  but  to  retrace  his  steps.  Once 
more  at  the  house,  he  again  sank  under  his  illness,  now, 
owing,  perhaps,  to  the  excitement  his  late  effort  had  caused, 
more  violent  than  before.  In  the  midst  of  his  acute  pains, 
as  if  to  gain  strength  from  the  example  of  his  suffering 
mother,  he  often  reverted  to  the  Society  and  its  recent  trials 
in  Europe.  It  was  in  the  same  spirit  in  which,  about  a 
month  before,  hearing  of  new  persecutions  excited  against 
us  by  the  English  Government,  he  had  cried  out  with  sud- 
den enthusiasm  :  Wicked  men  that  they  are  ;  they  wish  to 
kill  my  mother ! 

The  missionary  priest  of  Green  Bay  attended  him  in  his 
sickness,  and  despairing  of  his  recovery,  administered  to 
him  the  last  sacraments.  Almost  immediately  the  holy 
religious  fell  into  a  protracted  agony  which  ended  only  with 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  45 

his   life,  four  days   later,  Sept.  4th,  1845.     He  was  fifty-six 
years  old,  and  had  been  twenty-three  years  in  the  Society. 

The  Indians,  for  whom  he  was  planning  works  fraught 
with  so  much  good,  carried  his  remains  to  an  humble  rest- 
ing place  in  the  quiet  cemetery  near  "The  Fathers'  Rapids." 
This  place  belonged  of  old  to  the  missionaries  of  the  Soci- 
ety in  these  regions ;  and  it  was  a  strange  contrast  to  the 
"long,  long  views"  of  poor  devising  man,  that  he  who  hoped 
to  revive  these  once  flourishing  missions,  and  instil  new  life 
into  these  neglected  works,  should  expose  himself  to  num- 
berless dangers  and  fatigues,  and  arrive  on  the  spot,  only 
to  be  received,  he  too,  as  they  had  been,  into  the  arms  of 
all-absorbing  death.  It  is  indeed  the  same  contrast  as  is 
exhibited  in  man's  very  nature: 

"An  heir  to  glory:  a  frail  child  of  dust." 
But  Father  Chazelle  had  now  ceased  to  be  the  frail  child  of 
dust,  and  had  entered  on  his  inheritance  of  glory. 

Worthy  brother  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  whose  burning 
zeal  seemed,  in  him,  to  live  again,  he  died,  as  his  holy  pre- 
decessor, far  away  from  his  brethren,  with  none  but  stran- 
gers to  receive  his  last  sigh,  and  with  his  eyes  turned 
yearningly  towards  the  fields  he  had  already  in  spirit  con- 
quered for  Christ.  These  indeed  were  kindred  spirits,  "one 
in  willing  and  in  not  willing  the  same;"  and  the  voice  that 
called  away  the  pure  soul  of  Father  Chazelle,  was  that  of 
the  loving  Master  of  both,  about  to  give  to  beings  such  as 
they,  one  in  spirit,  one  abode. 


46  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


The  Canada  branch  of  our  mission  was  not  to  absorb  all 
the  advantages  arising  from  our  first  Fr.  Superior's  visit  to 
the  North  ;  for,  as  he  was  the  father  of  both  branches,  so 
in  God's  bountiful  providence,  both  were  to  profit  by  it. 
That  of  Canada  was  indebted  to  him  for  its  very  existence  ; 
that  of  Kentucky  for  a  member  who  was  greatly  to  contrib- 
ute to  its  prosperity,  and  to  reflect  great  lustre  on  the 
Society  in  America :  we  refer  to  the  Rev.  John  Larkin,  a 
priest  of  St.  Sulpice,  whom  Rev.  Father  Chazelle  during 
his  stay  in  Canada  received  into  the  Society,  and  who  the 
following  year,  1840,  began  his  novitiate  in  Kentucky. 
The  life  of  this  remarkable  man  demands  more  than  a  pass- 
ing allusion.  Father  Larkin  was  born  in  1800,  in  the  county 
of  Durham,  Fngland,  and  after  pursuing  his  classical  stu- 
dies at  Ushaw  under  the  celebrated  Dr.  Lingard,  in  the 
same  class  with  the  late  Cardinal  Wiseman,  undertook  a 
journey  to  Hindostan  ;  and  on  his  return  studied  theology 
at  Paris,  in  the  Seminary  of  St.  Sulpice.  About  the  year 
1830,  being  then  a  priest  of  the  order,  he  was  sent  to  occu- 
py the  chair  of  philosophy  in  the  Sulpitian  college  at  Mon- 
treal. His  very  presence  gave  a  new  impetus  to  the  studies, 
especially  to  that  of  the  dead  languages.  For  himself,  in 
expounding  his  theses  to  the  class,  he  preferred  the  lan- 
guage of  Aristotle,  and  so  nobly  did  his  pupils  emulate  his 
example, and  so  well  did  they  succeed  under  his  careful  train- 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  47 


ing  that  they  were  soon  able  to  copy  their  master,  and  were 
only  allowed  the  choice  between  the  idiom  of  the  Philoso- 
pher and  the  language  of  Cicero. 

Fr.  Larkin  continued  in  his  professorial  chair  till  his  en- 
trance into  the  Society.  He  was  accompanied  to  Kentucky 
by  a  young  Prussian,  who  in  1841  likewise  assumed  the 
Jesuit  habit,  and  whose  ministry  was,  in  after  time,  to  be 
connected  with  the  earliest  days  of  that  last  great  work  of 
the  Society  in  America, — that  most  precious  boon  of  a 
zealous  father  to  the  Society's  children  in  the  new  World — 
Woodstock  College :  an  institution  round  which,  though 
still  young,  so  many  loving  memories  already  cluster,  thick 
as  the  running  ivy  that  fringes  its  own  mountain  slopes ;  a 
mansion  that  "Wisdom  has  built  for  herself,"  where  the  full 
training  of  the  Society  is  extended  by  devoted  Fathers  to 
deeply  grateful  sons, — that  training,  offspring  of  a  saint's 
mind  o'ershadowed  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  of  itself 
alone  if  only  unimpeded  in  its  slow  but  all-efficient  course 
permits  our  persecuted  Mother  confidently  to  count  on 
heroes  where  she  numbers  men  ; — a  home  of  brotherly  love 
which  is  daily  linking  our  provinces  closer  and  closer  to- 
gether in  the  network  of  charity, — light  as  the  filmy  thread 
that  scarce  sustains  its  pearl  of  morning  dew,  but  for  those 
it  twines  around  "indissolubly  strong," — an  abode  of  sancti- 
ty that  encloses  within  its  walls  more  than  one  chosen  friend 


48  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

of  God,  and  can  already  point  to  the  hallowed  grove— 
"Where  sleep  its  sainted  dead." 

And  finally,  a  sanctuary  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  to  which 
Jesus  has  left  His  name  and  His  Heart  forever;  where 
numbers  of  the  future  body-guard  of  the  Church  are  to  be 
rendered  invulnerable  by  being  steeped  in  the  living  waters 
that  gush  from  the  Source  of  all  strength,  and  where  the 
Fathers  who  are  so  untiring  in  their  labors,  have  even  now 
received  a  pledge  of  the  crown  that  awaits  them  and  their 
children,  in  the  aureole  of  glory  just  fallen  on  the  whole 
institution  ;  amid  the  effulgence  of  which,  Woodstock  Col- 
lege, with  its  closets  for  study,  its  halls  for  disputation,  its 
green  lawns  and  shady  walks  for  recreation,  seems  to  disap- 
pear, while  the  Sacred  Heart  rises  in  its  place,  open  wider 
than  ever,  to  be  henceforth  shrine  and  study,  class-room 
and  bower  for  all  the  inmates.  But  fond  memory,  disport- 
ing in  the  dreamy  "light  of  other  days,"  forgets  that  it  is 
not  now  called  on  to  weave  a  tribute  of  gratitude,  but  a 
simple  historical  narrative  ;  we  beg  pardon  and  resume  our 
theme. 

Fr.  Larkin's  noviceship  was  scarcely  ended  when  he  was 
appointed  prefect  of  studies,  and,  some  months  later,  presi- 
dent of  the  day-college  lately  opened  in  Louisville.  The 
people  of  that  city  were  not  slow  in  discovering  that  in  the 
new  president   they   possessed   no   ordinary   man :  and   so 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  49 


completely  did  he  captivate  the  hearts  of  all,  Catholics  as 
well  as  Protestants,  that  he  was  invited  to  deliver  the  cus- 
tomary oration  on  our  great  national  holiday,  the  4th  of 
July.  Some  years  previous  he  had  been  solicited  by  a 
literary  society  of  the  city  to  lecture  before  them,  instead 
•of  the  celebrated  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  had  been  pre- 
vented by  sudden  illness  from  delivering  a  discourse  already 
announced,  but  this  time  the  invitation  was  tendered  to  him 
by  the  military  themselves.  Besides  those  who  had  already 
heard  of  Fr.  Larkin,  crowds  of  strangers  had  assembled 
even  from  distant  parts  of  the  state  to  behold  the  pageantry 
of  the  day  in  the  capital,  and  listen  to  the  discourse  for 
the  occasion  ;  but  what  was  their  surprise  on  seeing  as- 
cend the  rostrum  in  the  open  square,  not  a  military  officer, 
nor  a  civil  magistrate,  but  a  Catholic  priest  in  cassock,  sur- 
plice and  stole.  Now,  if  ever,  had  the  orator  need  of  all 
his  power  of  insinuation ;  and  never  perhaps  did  speaker 
wield  his  exordium  with  more  success.  He  had  been 
invited,  Fr.  Larkin  said,  to  address  the  assembly  by  the 
military  of  the  city : — he  too  was  a  soldier, — but  under  the 
standard  of  the  cross.  They  stood  before  him  arrayed  in 
their  warlike  costume,  uniform,  belt  and  sword  ; — would  not 
his  appearence  be  out  of  harmony  with  theirs  had  he  ad- 
dressed them  in  any  other  garb  than  his  own  uniform,  the 
insignia  of  his  sacred  calling  ? 


50  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


The  eyes  of  20,000  men,  riveted  from  that  moment  on 
the  glowing  countenance  of  the  minister  of  the  God  of 
armies,  vividly  spoke  his  triumph.  His  subject  was  : 
True  Liberty :  the  liberty  that  Christ  came  to  set  up 
among  men  ;  and  for  nearly  two  hours,  his  rich  voice,  and 
still  richer  thoughts,  filled  the  ears  and  minds  of  that  vast' 
multitude,  who  forgot  all  else  as  they  listened. 

Fr.  Larkin's  eloquence  was  clear,  fervid  and  heart-felt : 
the  weapon  of  the  word,  in  him,  was  moulded  in  his  broad, 
solid  intellect ;  but  before  passing  to  his  hearers,  it  was 
plunged  into  his  deep,  loving  heart :  here  it  received  its 
temper,  keen  as  the  sword's.  Perhaps  we  should  describe 
it  most  to  the  life  by  applying  to  it  what  our  English 
Homer  says  of  the  energetic  valor  of  the  younger  Atrides, 

■ 

in  the  heat  of  the  conflict  : 

"He  sent  Ms  soul  with  every  lance  he  threw."  * 

Fr.  Larkin  aimed  his  weapon  to  his  hearer's  reason,  but  it 
rested  not  till  it  had  forced  its  passage  to  the  heart.  It  was, 
in  a  word,  heart  speaking  to  heart,  man  to  man.  No  won- 
der then  that  the  crowds  listened  spell-bound,  breathless  ; 
and,  as  men  who  have  been  drinking  in  for  a  length  of  time 
a  delightful  melody,  even  when  he  has  ceased — 
"Listening  still  they  seemed  to  hear." 

*  Pope's  Iliad,  Bk.  xvii.  1.  647.         The  original  has  simply  : 
a/jrs-'.m  doufA  (fasrsw.  1.  574. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  5  1 


A  few  days  later,  a  journal  of  the  city  referred  to  the  pro- 
found erudition  and  the  polished  style  of  this  celebrated 
Jesuit,  as  having  invested  the  trite  subject  of  National  In- 
dependence with  a  light  and  beauty  till  then  unknown  to  his 
audience.  Seen  from  a  distance,  in  his  rural  Sanctuary,  it 
continued,  his  commanding  form  towering  above  the  plat- 
form until  it  almost  reached  the  branches  of  the  trees 
above  ;  his  sacerdotal  vestments  contrasting  with  the  bril- 
liant uniforms  around  ;  his  animated  figure  and  commanding 
gesture,  fixing  the  attention  of  the  steady  soldier  and  the 
respectful  citizen — Father  Larkin  reminded  us  of  scenes 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  an  humble  minister  of  the  Ro- 
man Church  would  review  the  Christian  leg-ions,  which, 
bristling  with  steel,  marched  to  the  rescue  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.  *  But  more  serious  matters  than  lecturing  now 
claimed  Father  Larkin's  attention.  The  College  that  had 
been  entrusted  to  his  care  was  far  from  being  prosperous — 
it  was  only  a  private  residence  fitted  up  for  class  rooms,  and 
had  never  yet  numbered  a  hundred  students.  Fr.  Larkin 
conceived  the  plan  of  erecting  a  grand  edifice,  to  be  in 
every  way  worthy  of  the  name  he  intended  it  should  bear, 
Loyola  College. 

His  plan  approved,  he  went  to  work  at  once,  and 


*  Louisville  Advertiser :  apud  Daurignac's  Hist,  of  the  Soc.  of  Jesus 
Vol.  2.  p.  314. 


52  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


"What  he  greatly  thought,  he  nobly  dared" 
A  fine  piece  of  land  was  purchased  at  some  distance  from 
the  city,  and  before  long,  the  massive  granite  walls  had 
risen  some  fifteen  feet  above  the  ground,  when  an  event 
occurred,  already  alluded  to  in  our  account  of  Father  Cha- 
zelle's  death,  which  completely  changed  the  destinies  of 
our  mission,  and  transported  our  toils  and  labors  to  an 
entirely  new  field  of  action. 

During  the  thirteen  years  of  its  existence  it  had  risen 
From  the  original  four  members,  till,  in  1844,  >t  numbered, 
including  those  in  Canada,  thirty-nine,  of  whom  nineteen 
were  priests,  three  scholastics,  ten  coadjutor  brothers,  and 
seven  novices  ;  but  it  had  never  as  yet  been  favored  by  any 
gladdening  visit  from  the  centre  of  unity  in  the  Society. 
In  1845,  the  joyful  news  came  that  Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger 
had  been  deputed  to  visit  the  French  missions  in  America. 
F"or  some  years  back  there  had  been  question,  at  different 
epochs,  of  a  visit  from  this  Father,  then  our  Provincial,  but 
obstacles  had  always  prevented  the  projected  journey,  until 
the  present  year,  when,  being  relieved  of  his  duties  as 
Provincial  by  Rev.  Fr.  Rubillon,  he  was  named  Visitor  by 
Most  Rev.  Fr.  Roothaan  ;  and  Fr.  J.  B.  Hus  assigned  him 
as  his  companion.  The  two  Fathers  reached  St.  Mary's, 
Kentucky,  on  the  14th  of  June. 

Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger  was  a  man  of  nerve  and  discernment: 
he  required  no  very  considerable  time  to  decide  upon  any 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  53 


matter  once  he  had  grasped  it  in  all  its  bearings.  Such  a 
man  was  needed,  for  several  vital  questions  had  been  pend- 
ing for  years,  and  were,  in  fact,  definitely  settled  during  his 
stay  among  us. 

The  first  was  the  absolute  refusal  to  receive  the  College  of 
.Bardstown,  which  had,  ever  since  our  Fathers'  arrival,  been 
repeatedly  pressed  on  their  acceptance. 

The  second  wafc  of  still  greater  moment.  From  the  very 
first  entrance  of  the  Society  into  Kentucky,  opinions  had 
been  divided  as  to  the  final  success  of  the  undertaking. 
There  were  indeed  human  considerations  enough  to  cast  a 
deep  gloom  over  the  still  uncertain  future  :  we  were  actually 
in  the  wild  woods,  not  even  an  ordinary  country  road  being 
visible  for  miles  around  ;  Catholics  were  few,  and  poor  at 
that,  Protestants  surrounded  us  on  all  sides  ;  and  moreover 
the  brothrely  intercourse  essential  to  union  could  hardly  be 
kept  up  between  the  colony  of  the  Society  lately  planted  in 
Canada  and  that  of  Kentucky,  when  so  great  a  distance 
separated  the  two  branches  of  the  same  family  stock.  To 
crown  all,  the  number  of  novices  was  so  small  as  to  leave 
no  hope  of  replacing  the  already  silvered  veterans,  whom 
old  age  and  ceaseless  toil  would  soon  be  sending  to  their 
rest. 

Whilst  our  Very  Rev.  Fr.  Visitor  was  weighing  these 
items  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  advantage  of  a  prolonged 


54  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


stay  in  Kentucky,  and  seemed  to  doubt  for  a  time,  to  which 
side  the  scales  inclined,  a  letter  arrived  from  the  newly-ap- 
pointed Bishop  of  New  York,  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Hughes, 
which  at  once  stopped  the  oscillation  of  the  balance.  The 
letter  contained  a  request  that  Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger  would 
accept  the  Bishop's  new  College  of  St  John,  situated  at 
Fordham,  about  ten  miles  from  New  York  ;  and  concluded 
by  asking  an  immediate  interview,  as  his  Lordship  was 
soon  to  set  out  for  Europe.  Indecision  formed  no  part  of 
Bishop  Hughes'  character,  and  when  he  had  to  deal  with  a 
man  of  like  disposition,  neither  time  nor  words  were  lost. 
It  was  agreed  to  transfer  to  St.  John's  all  the  members  of 
the  Society  then  in  Kentucky. 

When  it  became  noised  abroad  that  the  Jesuits  were 
going  to  leave  Kentucky,  both  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
who  saw  themselves  about  to  be  deprived  of  the  honor  of 
having  a  College  in  their  midst,  eagerly  strove  to  alter  their 
determination  ;  they  went  so  far  as  to  present  a  petition  to 
the  Fathers,  begging  them  to  remain  ;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
made  liberal  offers  of  aid  and  money.  Even  the  daily 
newspapers  of  Louisville  ignorant  of  the  new  field  opened 
to  their  zeal  in  Fordham,  and  suspecting  that  they  were 
forced  to  leave  against  their  will,  broke  out  into  loud  in- 
vectives against  the  ecclesiastical  superiors.  Bishop  Flaget 
was  deeply    grieved  at  the  thought  of  losing  the  Fathers 


Nezu  York  and  Canada  Mission.  55 


whom  he  esteemed  so  highly,  but  finding  it  impossible  to 
alter  their  determination,  called  in  the  priests  of  the  Holy 
Cross,  who  took  possession  of  the  College  of  St.  Mary's. 
The  uncompleted  edifice  at  Louisville  was  sold  back  to  the 
original  owners  of  the  property. 

As  the  minds  of  some  were  not  a  little  excited  on  the 
subject  of  our  entering  St.  John's,  and  even  the  students 
seemed  to  entertain  a  dread  of  having  Jesuit  teachers,  it 
was  not  deemed   advisable   that  all   should   start  at  once. 

« 

Accordingly,  towards  the  close  of  April,  1846,  two  Fathers 
were  despatched  to  Fordham  and  incorporated  with  the 
then  existing  Collegiate  staff. 

The  device  succeeded  to  perfection  :  the  hearts  of  the  stu- 
dents were  soon  won  by  the  kindness  of  the  Fathers ;  and 
the  parents,  were,  in  a  short  time,  happy  to  have  their 
children  receive  the  food  of  instruction  from  the  hands  of 
the  Jesuits.  Though  the  College  had  been  opened  in  1841, 
on  the  24th  of  June,*  feast  of  its  Patron,  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  it  was  only  on  July  15th,  1846,  a  few  months  after 
the  arrival  of  the  two  Fathers  who  had  been  sent  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  rest,  that  it  celebrated  its  first  annual 
commencement  since  the  reception  of  its  charter.  At  the 
conclusion  of  the  exercises  on  that  occasion,  the  Rt.  Rev. 
Bishop    Hughes,   but    lately  returned    from    Europe,  after 


De  Courcy,  Cath.  Church  in  U.  S.  c.  xxv.  p.  240. 


56  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


praising  in  the  most  cordial  terms  the  members  and  labors 
of  the  Society,  unfolded  his  whole  design  to  the  audience. 
The  Fathers  had  no  longer  anything  to  fear ;  by  the  end  of 
August  the  entire  transfer  had  been  effected,  and  Rev.  Fr. 
A.  Thebaud  entered  on  his  duties  as  President  of  the  College. 

Fr.  Theabud  was  the  fourth  who  sat  in  the  presidential 
chair.  The  present  Archbishop  of  New  York,  a  man  uni- 
versally esteemed  for  his  talents  and  amiability,  had  been 
taken  from  his  pastoral  duties  at  St.  Joseph's  Church,  N.  Y., 
to  be  the  first  President,  as  well  as  Professor  of  Rhetoric 
and  Belles-Lettres.  He  was  succeeded  in  1842  by  the  Rev. 
Ambrose  Manahan,  D.  D.,  who  was  in  turn  replaced  by  the 
Rev.  John  Harley.  On  the  first  staff  of  the  College,  we  find, 
as  Professor  of  Latin,  the  name  of  Mr.  John  J.  Conroy,* 
now  Bishop  of  Albany,  whilst  the  present  Archbishop  of 
Baltimore,  J.  Roosevelt  Bayley,  was  acting  president  under 
Fr.  Harley,  who  accompanied  Bishop  Hughes  to  Europe  in 
hope  of  finding  health. 

The  College  was  not  the  only  institution  on  the  estate, 
for  in  1 840,  the  Bishop  had  transferred  thither  from  Lafarge- 
ville,  and  had  placed  under  the  invocation  of  St.  Joseph,  his 
diocesan  Seminary.  The  seminarians  at  first  occupied  a 
small  stone  building  North-west  of  the  College,  but  in  1845, 
were    laid    the    foundations    of   the  beautiful    fortress-like 


*  Hassard.Life  of  Archbishop  Hughes,  c.  xiv,  p.  252. 


L_ I . 

New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  S7 


building  which  they  afterwards  occupied.  The  same  year, 
the  indefatigable  Bishop  began  the  erection  of  the  Church 
adjoining  the  Seminary  ;  and  he  has  left  us  a  convincing 
proof  of  his  zeal  for  the  house  of  God,  as  well  as  his  good 
taste  and  love  of  the  fine  arts  in  the  stained  glass  windows 
which  he  had  made  to  order  at  St.  Omers,  France,  express- 
ly to  beautify  the  temple  he  was  raising  to  his  Maker.  The 
Apostles  St.  Peter  and  St  Paul  and  the  four  Evangelists  are 
depicted  in  the  six  windows,  three  on  each  side.  The  fi- 
gures are  executed  in  the  best  style  of  modern  stained-glass  ; 
they  stand  on  floriated  Gothic  pedestals  of  gold,  surmounted 
by  a  rich  canopy  of  the  same,  while  at  the  foot  of  the 
pedestal  is  a  golden  escutcheon  containing  the  name  of  the 
Saint* 

St.  Joseph's  Seminary  was  not  sold  with  the  College,  but 
remained  under  the  control  of  the  Bishop  for  a  number  of 
years,  though  our  Fathers  were  employed  in  it  as  Professors 
of  Theology.  As  the  number  of  the  Fathers  was  too 
small  to  suffice  for  all  the  branches  of  instruction  taught 
both  in  the  College  and  Seminary,  aid  was  asked  from  the 
Society  in  Europe.  Among  the  Fathers  that  responded  to 
the  call  was  our  late  Reverend  Fr.  Charles  Maldonado,  whose 
devoted  labors  in  our  mission  for  a  number  of  years,  later 
gave  us  a  right  to   wreathe  at  least  a  few   flowers   into  the 

*  R.  Bolton,  Jr.    History  of  the  County  of  Westchester,  vol.  ii,  p.  331. 


58  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

garlands  that  already  twine  around  his  tomb — and  this  right 
we  dearly  prize.  We  look  upon  it,  in  fact,  as  a  real  blessing 
to  have  had  among  us  so  perfect  a  type  of  the  true  Jesuit ; 
for,  as  says  his  Obituary  in  a  back  number  of  the  Letters, 
"he  was  eminently,"  and  we  would  add,  emphatically,  "the 
child  of  the  Society ;  *  and  to  say  this  is,  we  think,  to 
strike  the  key-note  of  his  character. 

It  has  ever  been  impossible  for  us  to  associate  the  idea  of 
advanced  age  with  the  pleasing  image  of  Fr.  Maldonado, 
which  our  memory  loves  to  trace.  Even  his  depth  of 
learning  could  not  make  one  forget  his  "innocent  playful- 
ness ;"  nay,  it  was  this  latter  quality  that  first  struck  the 
beholder,  and  to  discover  the  former,  one  had  to  pierce 
this  exterior  surface  and  sink  down  into  the  well-stored 
mind.  Yet  we  would  not  intimate  that  he  strove  to  hide  his 
learning,  that  would  imply  a  strain  at  variance  with  his 
open  guileless  character ;  he  merely  seemed  to  ignore  its 
existence,  and 

"Unconscious  as  the  mountain  of  its  ore, 
Or  rock  of  its  inestimable  gem." 

without  any  effort  concealed  what  cost  him  such  persever- 
ing efforts  to  acquire. 

That  simplicity  so  charming  should  be  found  united  with 
erudition  so  vast  might  seem,  at  first,  a  matter  of  surprise  ; 


*  Woodstock  Letters,  vol.  i,  No.  3,  p.  202. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  59 

and  yet  these  qualities  far  from  being  opposed,  may  be  al- 
most said  to  form  but  one,  or  at  least  to  be  as  closelv 
linked  together  as  cause  to  effect.  For  surely,  stainless 
must  be  the  soul  that  produced  so  spotless  a  flower ;  and 
the  purest  of  hearts  the  only  possible  sanctuary  where  such 
dove-like  innocence  could  nestle.  Now  it  is  the  special 
privilege  of  the  pure  of  heart  to  sec  God ;  to  contemplate 
the  very  source  of  all  wisdom  and  knowledge. 

To  say  that  with  so  attractive  a  disposition,  Fr.  Maldo- 
nado  endeared  himself  to  all  the  inmates  of  St.  John's, 
both  young  and  old,  students  and  Professors,  would  be 
simply  to  note  the  application  to  the  moral  order  of  those 
facts  of  nature  our  meads  and  prairies  daily  exhibit :  that 
the  sweet-brier  and  honey-suckle  are  sought  alike  by  our 
sober-suited  songsters,  and  sportive  humming-birds. 

Fr.    Maldonado   returned  with   interest   the  affection  of 
which  he  was  the  object ;  and  Fordham  and  its  associations 
so  interlaced  themselves  around  his  heart  that  it  was  ever 
after  his  delight  to   revisit  the   scenes  of  his  first  home  in 
America. 

It  is  no  doubt  to  these  lingering  memories  that  we  scho- 
lastics are  indebted  for  the  happy  hours  we  spent  in  his 
company,  only  a  few  days  before  death  snatched  him  from 
us.  After  suffering  himself  to  be  enticed  from  his  quiet 
retreat  of  study  and  prayer  at  Woodstock,  to  spend  a  few 


6o  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


days  in  our  Mission,  he  consented  to  join  us  at  Fort  Hill  ; 
and  during  his  short  sojourn  in  our  midst,  his  innocent 
simplicity  of  character  seemed  to  reveal  itself  by  traits 
more  charming  than  ever,  as  he  was  approaching  the  time 
when  this  very  quality  was  to  be  his  passport  to  the  arms 
of  the  Saviour  who  has  said  :  "Unless  you  become  as  little 
children,  you  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

It  was  indeed  a  sight  we  shall  never  forget  to  behold  the 
learned  divine,  successor  of  Suarez  in  the  chair  of  Theology 
at  Salamanca,  seated  on  the  boards  of  our  piazza,  and  look- 
ing with  an  all-absorbed  gaze  on  the  sprightly  gambols  of 
a  little  pet  squirrel  in  his  wire  cage.  With  what  delight  he 
would  eye  the  "little  fellow,"  as  he  called  him,  and  every 
now  and  then  as  the  little  prisoner  exhibited  some  new 
antic,  some  bold  feat  of  agility,  break  out  with  :  "Nonne 
Mirandum  /"  It  was  the  man  of  prayer  finding  matter  for 
wonder  and  amazement  in  the  smallest  of  God's  creatures. 

So   much  of  the   spirit  of   St.   Francis   of  Assisium  did 

we  see  in  our  beloved  guest   that  we  would   hardly  have 

been  surprised,  if  while  he  strolled  along  with  us  through 

our  shady  woods,  the  birds  that  twittered  and  circled  round 

him  had  ceased  their  warbling,  and  alighting  on  his  shoulders 

and  hands  remained  motionless  and  attentive  to  his  words, 

till,  as  St.  Francis,*  he  had  dismissed  them  with  the  sign  of 
the  cross. 


*Life  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  by  R.  B.  Vaughan.    Vol.  I.   c.  5,  St. 
Francis  and  St.  Dominic. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  61 


Why  should  it  not  be  so?  when  on  innocent  man 

"'all  things  smiled :" 

ind  when  around  Adam  and  Eve 

"as  they  sat  recline 
On  the  soft  downy  bank  damasked  with  flower^, 

frisking  played 
All  beasts  of  th'earth,  since  wild,  and  of  all  chase 
In  wood  or  wilderness,  forest  or  den."* 

But  it  was  of  little  moment  to  him  that  the  birds  of  our 
forests  should  cluster  around  him,  when  he  was  so  soon  to 
be  surrounded  by  beings  of  far  fairer  wing,  of  far  sweeter 
note  than  any  this  poor  world  can  boast  of;  when  the  very 
angels  of  God  were  so  soon  to  welcome  him  into  the  Divine 
Presence.     Truly  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

But  to  return  to  St.  John's.  Rose  Hill,  as  the  estate  was 
called  on  which  the  College  stood,  and  which  for  a  time 
gave  its  name  to  the  institution,  f  was  a  lovely  spot  that 
would  have  charmed  even  a  far  less  genial  converser  with 
Nature  than  our  dear  Fr.  Maldonado.  In  front  of  the  stone 
building  that  capped  a  gentle  eminence,  stretched,  with  easy 
descent,  a  beautiful  lawn  some  twenty  acres  in  extent,  and 
up  and  down  this  verdant  slope  the  playful  breezes  seemed 
never  to  tire  of  chasing  each  other  in  mazy  pursuit.  Nor 
has  time  made  them  less  sportive,  for,  now,  as  well  as  then, 


*  Paradise  Lost.  Bk.  IV.  and  Bk.  VIII. 

f  It  was  for  some  time  known  as  Rose  Hill  College.  Bayley  Oath. 
Church  in  N.  Y.  p.  106,  Note. 


62  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


from  the  College  porch,  especially  of  a  morning-  in  early- 
Spring,  when  the  soft  green  texture  of  each  velvet  blade  is 
just  fresh  from  Nature's  loom,  and  the  whole  lawn  glistens 
with   its  myriad  drops  of  sun-lit  dew,  at  a  moment  when 

led  by  the  breeze, 
The  vivid  verdure  runs, 

one  is  easily  charmed  into  the  belief  that  Nature  has  sud- 
denly reversed  before  his  eyes  Nero's  astounding  pageant, 
the  solid  earth  seeming  to  have  suddenly  disappeared,  and   " 
himself  to  be  actually  gazing  on  the  wavy  ripplings  of  the 
sea. 

Along  the  edge  of  this  mimic  ocean,  like  so  many  giant 
cliffs,  forest-crowned,  merging  from  the  waves,  rose  tall  and 
majestic  some  magnificent  elms,  the  grafts  of  which, — so 
the  proprietors  were  fond  of  telling — had  been  brought  in 
olden  times  from  Holyrood  Palace,  the  once  noble  residence 
of  the  Scottish  Sovereigns,  and  witness  to  the  many  woes, 
as  well  as  hallowed  by  the  sublime  virtues  of  the  saintly 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots. 

Nearer  the  College  a  clump  of  the  same  towering  trees,  ^ 
cast  its  refreshing  shade,  like  a  wooded  Island  bosomed  in 
the  ocean ;  and  just  in  front  of  the  marble  steps  leading  to 
the  entrance,  an  aged  weeping-willow  gnarled  and  grotesque, 
drooped  to  the  very  earth — beautiful  image  of  old  age  re- 
pentant. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  63 


In  the  rear  of  the  edifice  lay  a  large  and  productive 
farm  reaching  to  the  verge  of  an  extensive  wood,  through 
which,  as  liquid  boundary  of  the  property,  glided  the  peace- 
ful Bronx, 

"now  fretting  o'er  a  rock, 
Now  scarcely  moving  through  a  reedy  pool, 
Now  starting  to  a  sudden  stream,  and  now 
Gently  diffused  into  a  limpid  plain."  * 

Besides  these  rural  beauties  with  which  Nature  had  adorned 
the  environs  of  St.  John's,  the  part  of  Westchester  county 
in  which  it  lay  was  classic  ground — the  scene  of  many  a 
march  and  counter-march  of  the  Continental  forces  in  1776. 
"There  was  hardly  a  little  stream  for  miles  around,  hardly 
a  grass-grown  lane,"  says  the  biographer  of  Archbishop 
Hughes,  "which  had  not  been  the  scene  of  conflict ;  hardly 
an  old  house  with  which  some  thrilling  incident  of  the  war 
was  not  associated  ;  hardly  a  commanding  hill  upon  which 
the  antiquary  might  not  still  trace  the  marks  of  an  ancient 
camp,  or  the  lines  of  a  ruined  fortification."  f 

Fordham  Heights  especially,  a  ridge  of  hills  little  more 
than  a  stone's  throw  in  front  of  the  College  grounds,  were 
celebrated  as  being  the  position  occupied  by  Gen.  Wash- 
ington previous  to  the  battle  which  took  place  at  White 

*  Thomson's  Seasons — Summer,  li.  481. 

t  Address  delivered  before  the  Historical  Association  of  St.  John's 
College,  Dec.  3rd,  1863,  by  J.  R.  G.  Hassard. 


64  Nciv  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

/ 

1 

Plains,  about  thirteen  miles  farther  north,  on  October  28th, 
1776.  It  was  probably  at  this  time,  while  the  Commander- 
in-chief  was  directing  in  person  some  of  the  movements  of 
the  Americans,  that  he,  according  to  a  popular  tradition, 
passed  the  night  in  the  old  wooden  farm-house  to  the  left 
of  the  College.  The  sister  tradition,  however,  which  points 
to  the  parlor  of  the  same  cottage  as  the  place  in  which 
Washington  signed  the  death-warrant  of  Major  Andre,  a 
legend  to  which  the  students  clung  with  patriotic  tenacity, 
is,  according  to  the  same  writer  just  mentioned,  "most  cer- 
tainly untrue ;  as  Fordham  at  the  time  of  Andre's  execu- 
tion, was  within  the  British  lines." 

In  fact,  after  the  battle  of  White  Plains,  Gen.  Howe,  the 
English  commander,  took  possession  of  the  fortifications 
along  the  Heights,  which  the  Americans  had  abandoned, 
and  kept  them  till  the  end  of  the  war. 

There  exists  still  another  traditionary  legend,  on  which 
most  probably  the  same  verdict  of  "unfounded"  must  be 
passed :  it  is  that  Washington  once  fastened  his  charger  to 
the  old  willow  above  described.  And  well,  perhaps,  it  is 
for  the  aged  tree  not  to  have  this  new  title  to  renown,  else, 
instead  of  exciting  the  admiration  of  all  passers-by  on  ac- 
count of  its  strongly-developed  and  characteristic  bumps, 
with  life  enough  in  it  to  put  forth  its  pendant  verdure  for 
years  to  come,  it  might  have  met  the  fate  of  the  Royal  Oak, 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  65 


whose  thick  foliage  sheltered  for  a  whole  day  tlu  Cavalier 
King,  saved  him  from  the  Roundheads  in  hot  pursuit,  and 
was,  as  history  relates,  afterwards  destroyed  to  satisfy  the 
veneration  of  the  Cavaliers.*  Still  even  this  tradition  may 
be  true,  for  that  an  engagement,  in  which  Washington  him- 
self, perhaps,  was  present,  must  have  taken  place  much 
nearer  to  Rose  Hill  than  that  of  White  Plains,  nay,  most 
probably  on  the  estate  itself,  is  evident  from  the  large- 
grassy  mound  covering  the  remains  of  a  number  of  soldiers, 
which  formed  a  very  conspicuous  object  on  the  North  side 
of  the  lawn,  and  on  which  the  people  even  now  look  with 
great  reverence. 

The  quiet  Bronx  itself  had  its  warlike  associations,  hav- 
ing been  once  the  only  barrier  that  separated  the  contending 
armies ;  for  in  those  days,  before  mills  and  dams  had  en- 
croached upon  its  copious  waters,  it  was  considered  a 
sufficient  obstacle  to  stay  a  hostile  force.  Besides,  when  it 
had  passed  the  College  property,  it  had  already  travelled 
for  miles  through  the  valley  it  fertilizes,  to  which  it  gives 
its  name,  and  many  a  time  must  it  have  hushed  its  waters 
into  deeper  stillness  as  it  met  in  its  course  some  hallowed 
spot,  where  heroes  fought  and  bled.  Many  an  act  of  noble 
daring  must  it  have  seen  in  those  by-gone  days,  when,  too, 


I  *  Lingard.     Hist,  of  Engl.,  Vol.  x,  p.  336. 


66  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


it  was  the  only  witness  of  the  deed,  and  the  rocks  on  its 
banks  the  only  herald,  by  their  echo,  of  the  valorous  shout 
or  encouraging  cheer  of  man  to  man.  Many  a  purple  rill 
of  patriot  blood  must  have  trickled  through  the  valley  and 
found  its  way  to  the  peaceful  bed  of  the  river,  dyeing  its 
crystal  waters ;  and  many  a  wounded  soldier  must  have 
dragged  himself  to  its  edge  to  cool  his  fevered  lips,  and 
whisper,  perhaps,  a  faint  farewell  to  its  gently  gliding  waves, 
in  the  frenzied  hope  that  they  might  bear  it  along  on  their 
rippling  crests  to  the  loved  ones  far  away. 

Even  after  the  jarring  sounds  of  war  were  hushed  by  the 
peace  of  1783,  Rose  Hill  was  still  connected  with  those 
who  had  fought  our  battles,  being  the  residence  of  Colonel 
John  Watts,  who  had  married  the  celebrated  Lady  Mary 
Alexander,  daughter  of  Major-General  Lord  Stirling,  whose 
claims  to  the  peerage,  however,  were  not  acknowledged  by 
the  House  of  Lords. 

Such  then  was  the  new  field  of  labor  on  which  our 
Fathers  entered  in  1846,  and  though  they  had  encountered 
many  difficulties  in  the  realization  of  their  plan,  they  were 
soon  greatly  consoled  by  the  piety  of  the  students  entrusted 
to  their  care.  Among  the  hundred  and  fifty  students  on 
the  College  roll,  were,  as  we  learn  from  the  Annual  Letters 
of  those  days  many  really  devout  children,  and  very  loving 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  6j 

clients  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Animated  with  a  zeal  un- 
common at  their  age,  they  had  formed  a  Society  for  the 
conversion  of  sinners,  and  recommended  to  each  other's 
prayers,  one  a  father  who  had  neglected  his  religious  duties, 
another  a  mother  still  outside  the  true  Church,  etc.  The 
prayers  of  these  innocent  souls  were  very  efficacious,  and 
in  a  short  time  five  Protestants,  for  whom  they  had  been 
petitioning  the  Almighty,  entered  the  one  Fold  of  Christ ; 
and  two  hardened  sinners  returned  to  a  better  life. 

Far  from  being  an  obstacle  to  their  studies,  their  piety 
only  took  another  form  when  there  was  question  of  prepa- 
ration for  class,  and  showed  itself  in  serious  application  to 
their  books.  The  next  annual  commencement,  which  took 
place  "under  the  elms,"  in  July,  1847,  the  first  since  the 
College  had  been  entrusted  to  our  Fathers,  gave  abundant 
evidence  of  the  students'  progress.  The  programme  com- 
prised five  discourses,  two  of  which,  at  least,  seem -to  have 
been  really  extraordinary.  One,  which,  says  the  annalist, 
surpassed  all  expectation,  was  in  Latin,  and  entitled :  "De 
Latinae  Linguae  Laudibus,"  "ipsa  laude  dignissima,"  adds 
the  MS.  The  other  was  in  English  and  was  graced  with 
the  novel  heading  :  "Nothing  Original :"  yet  so  very  origi- 
nal did  it  prove  to  be — saving  the  paradox — that  two  Prot- 
estant papers  deemed  it  worthy  of  a  verbatim  transcription 


68  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


the  following  day.  An  orchestra  from  the  city  added  its 
charms  to  the  other  attractions  of  the  occasion,  and  the 
two  thousand  spectators,  including  a  large  number  of  the 
clergy,  were  loath  to  leave  the  spot,  where  the  productions 
of  science  and  art  to  which  they  had  listened,  were  only 
outdone  by  the  beauties  of  Nature  which  greeted  their  eyes 
wherever  they  turned.  Thus  were  inaugurated  those  annual 
festivities  now  so  well  known  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York, 
and  always  so  welcome  to  the  many  friends  and  alumni  of 
St.  John's. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  69 

For  some  months  after  the  arrival  of  the  Fathers  at 
Fordham,  they  confined  their  works  of  zeal  mostly  to  the 
neighborhood  of  St.  John's  ;  but  in  the  year  of  the  Jubilee, 
1847,  several  of  them  were,  after  the  hours  of  literary  and 
scholastic  labor,  called  to  New  York,  for  the  exercise  of 
the  various  duties  of  the  ministry.  This  Jubilee,  besides 
producing  innumerable  salutary  effects  in  the  souls  of  the 
faithful,  had  the  advantage  of  teaching  Catholics  their  own 
strength  and  numbers.  The  Fathers,  themselves,  seeing 
the  great  good  that  might  be  done  by  their  continual 
presence  in  the  midst  of  so  flourishing  a  Catholic  popula- 
tion, were  anxious  to  have  a  permanent  residence  and 
College  within  the  city  limits,  and  accordingly  laid  their 
plan  before  the  Archbishop.  His  Grace  approved  of  it 
most  heartily,  a  similar  project  having  been  already  matur- 
ing in  his  own  mind,  and  offered  at  once  the  Church  of 
St.  Andrew,  in  Duane  Street.  This  edifice,  however,  was 
loaded  with  a  heavy  debt,  and  owing  to  its  situation  in  a 
very  unfavorable  part  of  the  city,  was  not  such  as  the 
Fathers  desired. 

Meanwhile   Fr.   Larkin   had  been  appointed  Superior  of 
the  residence  in  contemplation,  and,  in  the  summer  of  the 
same  year,  left  St.  John's  in  the  true  apostolic  spirit,  with-, 
out  gold  or  silver  in   his  purse.     As  he  said  himself,  in  a 
sermon  preached  some  years  later,  he  started  from   Ford- 


jo  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

ham  with  fifty  cents  in  his  pocket  to  purchase  a  church  and 
a  house  in  the  city.  Twenty-five  cents  he  paid  for  his  fare 
in  the  cars,  twenty  cents  more  for  the  carriage  of  his  trunk 
from  the  station  to  the  residence  of  a  friend,  and  had  thus 
five  cents  left  to  found  his  new  house  and  church.  But 
confidence  in  God  stood  him  instead  of  riches  ;  and  Divine 
Providence  did  not  disappoint  him. 

While  awaiting  the  moment  when  Divine  Providence 
would  manifest  its  will  more  in  detail  regarding  the  new 
undertaking,  Fr.  Larkin  accepted  the  kindly  proffered 
hospitality  of  Fr.  Lafont,  Pastor  of  the  French  Church  ; 
where,  together  with  Fr.  Petit,  who  had  been  given  him  as 
Socius,  he  remained  occupied  in  earnest  prayer  for  the 
success  of  his  plans.  They  had  not  to  wait  long.  It  hap- 
pened just  at  this  time,  that  the  congregation  of  the  Prot- 
estant church,  situated  in  Walker  St.,  near  Elizabeth,  split 
into  two  violent  factions  :  the  occasion  being  the  advent  of 
a  young  curate,  with  whose  new  views,  exposed  with  capti- 
vating eloquence,  the  younger  members  immediately  sided. 
in  opposition  to  the  more  sedate  portion  of  the  congrega- 
tion, who  still  stood  by  the  old  vicar.  A  stormy  session 
followed,  and  at  its  conclusion  the  young  party  was  invited 
to  find  a  meeting  house  somewhere  else — which  they  ac- 
cordingly did.  But  the  old  party  had  not  calculated  the 
strength  of  the  schismatics,  who  proved  so  numerous,  that 


Njw  York  and  Canada  Mission.  7 1 


on  their  withdrawal,  it  became  a  matter  of  necessity  to  sell 
the  church  in  order  to  meet  the  interest.  Fr.  Larkin  heard 
of  the  affair,  and  at  once  sought  to  turn  the  wranglings  of 
these  sects  within  a  sect  to  the  furtherance  of  God's  Church. 
The  trustees  were  willing  to  strike  the  bargain  for  $18,000, 
provided  $5,000  were  paid  at  once,  and  the  rest  by  regular 
instalments.  Fr.  Larkin  asked  time  to  decide.  But  how 
was  he  to  find  $5,000?  How  indeed,  but  by  fervent  recourse 
to  heaven  ?  "Now"  said  he  to  Fr.  Petit,  with  all  the  earnest- 
ness of  his  soul,  "now  is  the  time  for  prayer ;  we  must  both 
offer  the  Holy  Sacrifice  to-morrow  for  this  intention."  Fr. 
Petit  had  just  finished  Mass  the  next  day,  when  he  was 
called  to  the  parlor  by  a  gentleman  with  several  members 
of  his  family.  The  stranger  informed  the  Father  that,  with 
his  family,  he  had  just  arrived  from  France  and  had  assist- 
ed at  his  Reverence's  Mass  in  thanksgiving  for  their  safe 
journey.  "I  have  come,"  continued  the  visitor,  "to  find 
work  in  this  country,  and  have  with  me  about  20,000 
francs  which  I  would  like  to  place  in  safe  keeping.  Hear- 
ing that  the  banks  are  not  always  secure  I  have  come  to 
ask  you  if  you  can  tell  me  where  I  can  best  dispose  of  my 
money."  This  indeed  was  a  God-send  !  Fr.  Petit  replied 
that  if  he  would  call  again  in  the  evening,  he  thought  he 
could  offer  him  the  required  security.  Fr.  Larkin,  hearing 
of  this  was  deeply  affected  at  so  striking  an  interposition  of 


j  2  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Divine  Providence  ;  he  received  with  gratitude  the  $5,003 
and  gave  in  return  a  mortgage  on  the  property.  But  the 
pious  Frenchman's  act  of  devotion  was  not  only  beneficial 
to  the  Fathers  ;  that  Mass  of  thanksgiving  was  to  prove 
the  occasion  of  all  his  own  future  success.  He  was,  in 
fact,  an  artist  in  fresco  painting.  He  came,  he  said  to  Fr. 
Larkin,to  seek  his  fortune  by  means  of  his  art,  as  yet  little 
known  in  this  country.  "Sir,"  replied  the  Father,  "your 
fortune  is  made  ;  and  I  myself  will  give  you  to  start  with, 
85,000  for  the  decoration  of  the  church." 

Fr.  Larkin's  predictions  were  verified  ;  for,  as  many  peo- 
ple, both  Protestants  and  Catholics,  visited  the  place  while 
the  Frenchman  and  his  son-in-law  were  at  work,  the  artists 
soon  became  well  known,  and  were  engaged  to  fresco  many 
banks  and  public  buildings.  At  the  touch  of  the  devout 
painter  the  four  bare  walls  of  the  cold  Protestant  meeting 
house  began  rapidly  to  assume  the  living  catholic  glow  ; 
and  even  before  all  was  completed,  the  church  was  by  a 
solemn  benediction,  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus. 
Fr.  Larkin  having  thus  his  church  already  built,  next  rent- 
ed a  house  in  Elizabeth  St.,  the  garden  of  which  adjoined 
the  square  in  front  of  the  church  door.  Here,  in  view  of 
starting  his  college,  he  collected  his  community  of  four 
fathers,  three  scholastics,  and  one  brother. 

As  we  may  imagine  from  the  condition  of  the  founder's 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  73 

purse,  poverty  was  a  constant  guest  in  the  new  residence. 
Still,  amid  many  privations,  the  work  of  God  went  on  pro- 
gressing. During  the  months  of  August  and  September 
the  basement  of  the  Church  was  fitted  up  for  class  rooms, 
and  the  school  of  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus  opened  in 
October,  with  120  students  from  New  York,  Brooklyn  or 
jersey  City. 

J  his  was  not  the  first  educational  establishment  of  the 
Society  in  New  York  :  as  far  back  as  1:685,  Col.  Dongan, 
Catholic  Governor  of  the  City,  had  sent  to  Europe  for 
some  English  Jesuits  to  convert  the  Iroquois  to  Christianity, 
as  he  was  opposed,  on  national  grounds,  to  using  the  zeal- 
ous Erench  missionaries  for  that  purpose.  Three  Eathers 
are  mentioned  in  the  Roman  Catalogue  as  residing  in  New 
York  about  this  time  ;  they  are  probably  those  who  re- 
sponded to  the  Governor's  call,  viz  :  Eathers  Thomas 
Harvey,  Henry  Harrison  and  Charles  Gage.  Being  unac- 
quainted with  the  Iroquois  dialects,  they  proceeded  no 
farther  than  New  York  ;  but  profited  by  their  stay  in  the 
City  to  open  a  college.  The  Catholic  element,  however, 
was  too  weak  to  support  it,  as  we  may  judge  by  the  follow- 
ing letter,  written  to  the  Governor  of  Mass.  by  Leisler,  a 
fanatical  merchant  who  had  become  the  head  of  the  Prot- 
estant party  for  refusing  to  pay  duties  to  a  Catholic  collec- 
tor ;  and  on  the  fall  of  James  II.,  had  usurped  the  office  of 


74  Neiv  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Lieut.  Governor  of  New  York.  His  letter  is  dated  August 
13th,  1689,  and  after  expressing  true  Protestant  apprehen- 
sions on  the  score  of  "some  six  or  seven  french  families 
all  or  most  rank  french  papists  that  have  their  relationes  at 
Canada  &  I  suppose  settled  there  [at  a  place  called  Schor- 
achtage)  for  some  bad  designe,"  adds  :  "  I  have  formerly 
urged  to  inform  your  Honr  that  Coll  :  dongan  in  his  time 
did  erect  a  jesuite  College  upon  cullour  to  larne  latine  to 

the    judges  west Mr  Graham   Judge  palmer  &  John 

Tudor  did  contribute  their  sones  for  some  time,  but  no 
boddy  imitating  them  the  collidge  vanished  I  recommended 
\  our  Honr  againe  to  spare  us  for  their  majesties  use  some 
threat  gunes  and  watt  pouder  your  Honr  can"  .  .  .  etc.*  In 
fact,  so  fatal  to  the  spread  of  Catholicity  seems  to  have 
been  the  rule  of  Leisler,  that  in  1696,  Mayor  Merritt  in 
compliance  with  an  order  from  Gov.  Fletcher  for  the  names 


*  E.  B.  O'Callaghan — Documentary  History  of  N.  Y.  State,  Vol. 
LI.,  ]>.  14.  We  copy  the  letter  exactly  as  it  is  found  in  the  original. 
punctuation  and  all.  No  doubt  Leisler's  untiring  efforts  to  bring  to 
naught  the  "bad  designes"  of  the  "rank  french  papists"  so  absorbed  all 
his  mental  energies — which  were  not  extraordinary,  admits  a  friendly 
biographer— as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  attention  to  any  minor 
subject,  that  could  not  affect  the  "preservation  of  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion." Unfortunately  for  the  poor  Lieut.  Governor,  his  zeal  for  the 
preservation  of  his  religion  seems  to  have  made  him  neglect  the  preser- 
vation of  his  own  head,  which  his  Protestant  friends,  rather  ungrate- 
fully, placed  beyond  the  possibility  of  any  further  application  to  the 
thwarting  of  "papist  designes,"  by  putting  a  halter  around  his  neck  two 
years  after  his  assumption  of  sovereignty.  The  charges  were  murder 
and  treason. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  75 


of  "all  the  Roman  Catholicks  or  such  as  are  reputed  Pa- 
pists within  the  city  of  New  Yorke"  returns  a  list  of  only 
ten  names.*  The  "Brief  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the 
Cath.  Church  on  the  Island  of  New  York,"  mentions  only 
nine  names  :  the  error  arising  most  probably  from  the  close 
resemblance  of  two  out  of  the  ten  given  in  the  document 
itself,  viz.  :   Peter  Cavileir  and  John  Caveleir. 

Under  such    circumstances   the   College  of  the   Society 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  prosper.     A    little   more  than 
a  century  later,  in  1809,  and,  at  the  request  of  Archbishop 
Carroll,  Father  Anthony  Kohlman  was  sent  from  George- 
town, to  attend,  as  Vicar  General,  the  diocese  of  New  York, 
till  the  expected  arrival  of  its  first  Bishop,  the   Right   Rev. 
Dr.  Luke  Concanen.|     This   father   was   accompanied  by 
Father    Benedict    Fenwick,   a   native   of   Maryland,    lately- 
ordained,  and  one  of  the  first   subjects  to  enter  the    Scho- 
lasticate  at  Georgetown,  after  the  restoration  of  the  Society 
in  the  United  States.     St.    Peter's,  then  the  only  Catholic 
Church   in   the   city,  was  placed  under  their  charge  ;    and 
although  the  functions  of  the  parochial  ministry  must  have 
filled   up  the  days  of  these  zealous  missionaries,  they  did 


*E.  B.  O'Oallaghan— Documents  relative  to  the  Colonial  History  of 
N.  Y.  State.        London  Documents,  X.,  p.  166. 

t  Bishop  Concanen  never  reached  New  York,  as  he  died  at  Naples  on 
the  eve  of  his  intended  departure. 


7 6  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


not  lose  sight  of  one  great  object  of  their  coming — the 
favorite  work  of  the  Society  itself — the  education  of  youth. 
They  had  brought  with  them  four  young  Scholastics, 
Michael  White,  James  Redmond,  Adam  Marshall  and 
James  Wallace  ;  and  soon  after  arriving,  purchased  som.e 
lots  fronting  those  on  which  F.  Kohlman  had  just  laid  the 
corner-stone  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  and  situated  be- 
tween the  Broadway  and  the  Bowery  road.  Here  they 
opened  their  school,  the  nucleus  of  a  future  College.* 
Concerning  the  school,  Father  Kohlman  thus  wrote  in  the 
following  July:  "It  now  consists  of  about  thirty-five  of  the 
most  respectable  children  of  the  city,  Catholic  as  well  as 
Protestant.  Four  are  boarding  at  our  house,  and  in  all 
probability  we  shall  have  seven  or  eight  boarders  next 
August."  This  school  was  transferred  to  Broadway  in 
September  ;  but  in  the  following  year  it  was  removed  far 
out  into  the  country,  to  a  spacious  building  near  what  is 
now  known  as  the  intersection  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Fiftieth 
Street.t 


*  De  Courcy — Catli.  Ch.  in  the  U.  8.,  c.  xxiii,  p.  367. 

f  Archbishop  Bayley — Brief  Sketch,  etc.,  c.  iii,  p.  67— A  strange 
substitution  of  15th  Street  for  50th  occurs  in  Shea's  translation  of  De 
Courcy's  work,  c.  xxiii,  p.  367 ;  attributable,  Mr.  Shea  informs  us,  to  the 
compositor's  transposing  51,  the  number  of  the  Street  named  in  the 
original.  Since  the  time  when  his  Grace,  Archbishop  Bayley,  wrote  his 
interesting  and  valuable  little  Sketch  of  the  progress  of  Catholicity  on 
the  Island  of  New   York,  the  old  frame  house  occupied  by  the   New 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  jy 


The  rising  College  assumed  the  name  of  the  New    York 
Literary  Institution,  and  was  the  means  of  doing  immense 

good.  A  biographer  of  Bishop  Fenwiek,  speaking  of  its 
usefulness,  remarks:  "The  New  York  Literary  Institution 
under  his  guidance  reached  an  eminence  scarcely  surpassed 
by  any  at  the  present  day.  In  1813  it  contained  seventy- 
four  boarders,  and  such  was  its  reputation  even  among 
Protestants,  that  Gov.  Tompkins,  afterwards  Vice  President 
of  the   United  States,  thought    none  more  eligible   for  the 


York  Literary  Institution  has  experienced  the  changeableness  of  human 
things,  as  it  now  no  longer  stands  on  its  old  site,  but  has  been  rolled 
bodily  back  about  800  feet,  so  as  to  front,  on  Madison  Avenue  instead  of 
Fifth.  Some  of  the  details  illustrative  of  the  checkered  history  of  this 
ancient  building,  as  we  gathered  them  a  few  days  ago  from  the  lips  of 
its  present  occupant,  the  pastor  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist's  Church,  are 
well  worth  recording. 

Our  kind  informant  assured  us  that  it  is  one  of  the  oldest  edifices  on 
the  Island,  dating  back,  most  probably,  150  or  200  years.  The  wood- 
work in  the  interior  was  all  of  solid  oak,  and  had,  no  doubt,.hrst  shaded 
the  spot  as  wide-spreading  trees,  before  being  felled  for  girders  and  joists. 
But  solid  oak  though  it  was,  the  long  lapse  of  years  had  told  on  it,  and 
the  half  decayed  rafters  and  beams  had  to  be  completely  renewed  at  the 
time  of  the  transportation.  It  is  not,  however,  only  from  its  time-worn 
condition  that  we  may  calculate  its  age — its  very  build  is  old-fashioned  : 
the  double  flight  of  wooden  steps  leading-  to  the  doorway,  and  the  mas- 
sive angular  projections  each  side,  like  huge  bay  windows,  remind  as  of 
one  of  those  way-side  inns  of  former  days,  or  hospitable  old  farm  houses, 

half  inn,  half  homestead,  with  "  whitewashed  walls  and  nicely  sanded 
floor," 

"  Where  nut-brown  draughts  inspire  I, 
Where  gray-beard  ninth  and  smiling  toil  retired; 
There  village  statesmen  talked  with  looks  profound. 
And  news  much  older  than  their  ale  went  round." 

But  the  day  was  not  very  far  distant  when  the  spot  it  occupied  was  to 
be  graced  by  a  far  nobler  pile,  destined  to  cast  its  Gothic  shadows  o'er 
yet  unbroken  fields,  and  send  its  chaste  spires  to  the  very  skies. 


78  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


education  of  his  own   children  ;  and   ever  afterwards  pro- 
fessed towards  its  President  the  highest  esteem.* 

The  professors  were  talented  men,  and  Mr.  Wallace,  who 
was  an  excellent  mathematician,  wrote  a  full  treatise  of 
over  five  hundred  pages  on  astronomy  and  the  use  of  the 
globes  :  one  of  the  first  contributions  of  the  Society  in 
America  to  the  exact  sciences. f 

But  it  was  impossible  through  dearth  of  men  to  carry  on 
the  College  without  sacrificing  other  varied  and  important 
duties.  Accordingly  in  the  Summer  of  1 813,  Our  Fathers 
retired  from  its  direction,  and  entrusted  it  to  the  Trappists, 
who  had  recently  entered  the  diocese,  and  were  passing  the 

After  the  change  of  possessors,  already  described  in  the  text,  and 
another  mentioned  a  little  farther  on,  the  old  building  was  entrusted  by 
Archbishop  Hughes  to  the  Lazarists,  a  year  or  so  previous  to  the  pur- 
chase of  St.  John's,  Fordham,  to  be  used  as  his  Seminary.  In  it  was 
held  the  diocesan  syuotl  in  which  his  Grace,  with  characteristic  foresight 
and  rare  breadth  of  view,  laid  before  his  priests  his  project  of  building 
on  that  very  spot  a  new  Cathedral  worthy  of  his  metropolitan  See.  But 
even  his  energetic  eloquence  almost  failed  to  secure  approbation  for  a 
Cathedra]  "in  the  country;"  for  at  that  time (1850), there  were  but  three 
houses  between  Madison  Square  (26th  Street)  and  50th  Street.  To  begin 
at  once  to  draw  the  Catholics  around  the  neighborhood,  he  appropriated 
part  of  the  house  for  a  parish  church,  until  time  allowed  him  to  raise  a 
small  temporary  chapel  in  honor  of  his  patron,  St.  John  the  Evangelist. 
Finally,  to  make  ro  >m  for  his  Cathedral,  the  former  wayside  inn  was 
transfened  to  its  present  position,  and  now  stands  directly  in  the  rear 
of  the  grand  edifice  that  is  little  by  little  nearing  its  completion — noble 
tribute  of  a  noble  soul  to  the  majesty  of  God. 

*  Clarke's  Lives  of  Deceased   Bishops,  Vol.  I,  p.  378. 

t  Do  Courcy,  Cath.  Church  in  N.  Y.  c.  xxiii,  p.  3(58.  The  title  page  of 
the  book  ran  thus :  A  New  treatise  on  the  Use  of  the  Globes  and  Practi- 
cal Astronomy,  by  J.  Wallace,  member  of  the  New  York  Literary 
Institution.     New  York:  Smith  and  Forman,  1812. 


Nezv  York  and  Canada  Mission.  79 


years  of  their   exile  from   France  on  the  hospitable  shores 
of  America. 

The  school  of  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus,  opened  by  Fr. 
Larkin  in  the  basement  of  his  church,  was  thus  the  third 
attempt  at  an  educational  institution  of  the  Society  in  New 
York  ;  and  this  last  was  in  God's  providence,  destined  to  a 
longer  life  than  had  been  granted  to  its  predecessors.  Its 
beginnings  however  seemed  to  augur  anything  but  a  pro- 
tracted existence,  as  the  entire  church  which,  the  beautiful 
decorations  were  rendering  daily  less  unworthy  of  the 
Adorable  Victim  offered  up  therein,  was  to  become,  in  a 
short  time,  itself  a  victim,  on  an  altar  of  flame ;  and  the 
blooming  frescos  were  to  prove,  so  to  speak,  but  the  gar- 
lands twined  round  it  before  the  sacrifice.  The  cross  of 
fire  that  had  blessed  our  outset  in  Kentucky  was  also  to 
cast  its  chastening  rays  on  our  first  undertaking  in  New 
York. 

It  would  seem  almost  as  if  Fr,  Larkin  had  peered  into 
the  uncertain  future,  when,  in  one  of  his  grand  exhorta- 
tions to  the  community,  the  eve  of  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus, 
their  patronal  feast,  he  counselled  all  to  prepare  for  crosses ; 
they  were  prospering,  he  said,  too  rapidly,  not  to  expect  at 
the  hands  of  the  Almighty  the  granting  of  the  famous 
prayer  of  our  Holy  Founder  :  that  the  Society  might  nev- 
er stray  far  from  Calvary. 


80  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Saturday  evening,  the  28th  of  January,  1848,  just  one 
week  after  Fr.  Larkin's  prophetic  warning  had  been  given, 
all  the  fathers  were  occupied  confessing  the  throngs  of  pen- 
itents that  filled  the  church.  At  7  o'clock  they  left  the  con- 
fessional to  snatch  a  hasty  cup  of  tea,  and  as  the  number  of 
people  in  the  church  seemed  in  no  ways  diminishing,  unan- 
imously agreed  to  devote  the  whole  night  to  the  sublime 
work  of  reconciling  man  to  his  creator. 

The  fathers  had  been  at  their  posts  an  hour  or  so,  when 
they  perceived  an  extraordinary  heat  throughout  the  church. 
At  a  loss  to  account  for  this,  they  descended  to  the  cellar, 
and  great  was  their  dismay  at  finding  that,  owing  to  some 
defect  in  the  new  furnaces,  completed  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  the  fire  had  communicated  to  the  joists  of  the  base- 
ment flooring,  then  sped  along  to  the  lathing,  and  rushing 
up,  as  through  a  chimney,  between  the  lathing  and  the 
walls,  had  burst  forth  from  the  very  steeple  before  they 
were  aware  of  the  accident  in  the  church  below.  The 
alarm  was  immediately  given,  and  numbers  of  Catholics 
rushed  to  the  spot  with  concealed  weapons,  suspecting  that 
enemies  had  attacked  and  set  fire  to  the  church  ;  though 
the  truth  was  that  the  Protestants  of  the  neighborhood 
vied  with  the  Catholics  in  endeavoring  to  save  what  they 
could.  But  it  was  already  too  late  :  barely  was  there  time 
to  remove  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  as  the  ceilings  and  walls 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  81 


of  the  class  rooms  in  the  basement  were  blazing,  and 
above,  the  steeple  was  a  pillar  of  fire,  where  the  flames 
raged  in  all  their  fury,  far  out  of  reach  of  the  engines. 
The  roof  fell  in  and  gave  hope  of  preventing  any  farther 
spread  of  the  flames. 

Meanwhile,  amid  the  din  and  confusion  that  surrounded 
him,  Fr.  Larkin  maintained  perfect  self-possession,  aiding 
and  encouraging  his  afflicted  community  by  word  and  ex- 
ample. When  he  saw  that  no  more  could  be  done,  he 
assembled  them  together,  as  well  as  circumstances  permit- 
ted, and  gave  the  sad  permission  to  disperse  as  numbers  of 
kind  families  had  already  earnestly  solicited  the  favor  of 
harboring  some  of  the  harborless.  But  we  cannot  do  bet- 
ter than  quote  the  very  words  of  the  kind  Father,  then  a  scho- 
lastic, to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  these  details.  Covered 
with  a  fireman's  coat,  which  had  been  forced  on  him  by  one 
of  that  devoted  class,  he  had  sought  shelter  at  a  friend's 
house,  there  to  pass  the  night.  "The  next  morning  I 
arose,"  he  says  in  his  diary,  "and  repaired  to  the  scene  of 
the  disaster — found  the  walls  still  standing,  as  likewise  the 
steeple  ;  but  all  else,  as  well  as  the  two  adjoining  houses,  a 
heap  of  ruins.  While  contemplating  with  a  heavy  heart 
the  ravages  the  fire  had  made  in  so  short  a  time,  in  the  just 
finished  church  and  school,  and  reflecting  that  our  little 
community  had  been  so  scattered  that  I  knew  not  where  to 


82  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


find  a  single  member,  I  heard  by  my  side  a  most  agonizing 
scream  which  soon  brought  me  to  my  senses,  Turning 
round  I  beheld  motionless  on  the  ground,  the  pious  and 
charitable  Mrs.  S.  .  .  .,  who  with  her  two  daughters  and  her 
grandson  had  come  as  usual  to  the  half  past  five  o'clock 
Mass.  She  had  learned  nothing  of  the  accident  until  she 
had  reached  the  very  spot,  and,  unable  to  bear  the  shock, 
had  fainted  on  the  ruins  of  her  loved  church  ! — Again  I  am 
alone,  I  walk  around  towards  our  house — find  the  door 
open  and  enter.  All  within  is  bare  and  desolate.  Not  a 
chair  or  table  in  the  house  !  the  floors  and  walls  streaming 

with  water.  I  descend  to  the  kitchen,  and  there  find  our 
devoted  Brother  D  .  .  .  .,  busy  drying  up  the  place  and  pre- 
paring to  make  a  little  coffee  for  the  community,  which  he 
hoped  would  assemble  in  the  course  of  the  morning  :  he 
had  remained  in  the  house  all  night  I  went  to  the  French 
church  to  Mass,  and  then  returned  to  keep  house  and  let  the 
Brother  go.  After  a  second  tour  amid  the  ruins,  I  again 
entered  the  house,  and  found  all  the  community  assembled, 
taking  their  coffee,  each  having  his  adventure  of  the  night 
to  relate.  Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger  who  had  been  Superior  of 
the  Mission  since  1846,  having  seen  in  the  morning's 
Herald,  an  account  of  the  accident,  had  come  in  all  haste 
from  Fordham  to  the  City,  and  was  only  soothed  in  his 
grief  by  the  cheerful  resignation   he  found  in  the  sufferers. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  83 

The  countenance  of  Fr.  Larkin  especially  appeared  as  fresh 
and  as  cheerful  as  ever  :  the  storm,  if  storm  there  was, 
raged  all  within.  So  too  we  often  find  in  nature,  many  a 
peaceful  and  smiling  landscape  actually  covering  confused 
and  disjointed  masses  of  rock,  which  to  the  piercing  eye 
of  science  reveal  the  terrible  upheavals  and  convulsions 
that  must  have  preceded  that  scene  of  rural  beauty  and 
repose,  on  which  the  eye  loves  to  dwell.  If  sorrow  had, 
the  evening  before,  deepened  the  lines  on  his  open  counte- 
nance, saintly  resignation  had  smoothed  away  all  trace  of 
sorrow's  visit ;  if  a  tear  for  the  sufferings  of  others  had 
escaped  him  in  this  visitation  from  on  High, 

"It  was  a  tear  so  limpid  and  so  meek, 
It  would  not  stain  an  angel's  cheek." — 

Ere  morning  dawned  he  had  already  carefully  matured  his 
plans  for  the  future  ;  and  on  Rev.  Fr.  Boulanger's  announc- 
ing that  all  were  to  go  to  Fordham  with  him,  he  quietly 
asked  :  "and  what  shall  we  do  for  professors  and  confessors 
if  you  take  all  away  ?  "  Rev.  F.  Superior  opened  his  eyes 
in  blank  astonishment,  and  exclaimed  :  "  You  have  neither 
church  nor  school,  scarcely  a  house  to  spend  the  night  in, 
what  can  you  do  with  professors?"  Fr.  Larkin  to  every 
one's  surprise,  coolly  remarked;  "The  professors  shall 
teach  their  classes  to-morrow,  and  the  Fathers  attend  to 
their  confessionals  as  usual."     A  dead  silence  followed  this 


84  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


announcement  Had  the  blow,  fatigue  and  excitement 
clouded  his  reason  ?  Such  was  the  dread  thought  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  all.  But  it  vanished  as  he  added — 
"  Yes,  I  shall  make  arrangements  with  Fr.  Smith,  Pastor  of 
St.  James'  in  James  Street,  to  open  without  delay  our  clas- 
ses in  the  basement  of  his  church,  till  we  find  better 
accommodations ;  and  our  parishioners  we  can  attend  to 
in  the  French  church." 

"  His  plan  was  followed  ;  Fr.  Smith  kindly  made  all  the 
necessary  preparation,  and  two  days  later,  to  the  great  joy 
of  our  students,  who  had  thronged  the  house  daily,  to 
condole  with  their  afflicted  professors,  the  classes  were 
resumed.  Fr.  Larkin's  next  thought  was  for  his  church, 
which  all  urged  him  to  rebuild  at  once.  He  determined, 
— yielded  to  their  wishes,  and  in  a  week's  time  had  already 
collected  $6,000,  brought  to  the  house  by  the  zealous  and 
charitable  members  of  the  congregation." 

He  had  many  anecdotes  to  relate,  in  his  own  pleasing 
way,  respecting  those  who  offered  him  their  little  mites 
towards  the  erection  of  the  new  church.  One  day  at 
dinner,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  two  large,  rosy  apples, 
saying:  "These  apples  certainly  deserve  a  'Deo  Gratias!'  I 
was  passing  through  the  Bowery  to-day,  he  continued, 
when  I  was  accosted  by  an  apple  woman,  who  began  her 
salutation  with    a  'well    Fr.   Larkin.  your  church  is  burnt ; 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  85 

the  Lord  be  praised  !'  'The  Lord  be  praised  !'  I  repeated, 
are  you  then  glad  of  it?  "Oh!  God  forbid,'  she  replied, 
"  but  then  we  must  give  God  glory  for  everything.'  I 
acknowledged  in  my  heart  the  truth  of  her  remark,  and 
resolved  to  profit  by  the  lesson  she  gave  me.  'Ah  !  Father,' 
she  continued,  '  if  I  had  some  money  to  give  you  !  but  I 
am  a  poor  widow  with  five  children,  that  I  must  support 
by  my  apples.  Something  I  can  give,  and  I  hope  it  will 
have  all  the  blessings  of  a  widow's  mite.  You  must  take 
the  two  finest  apples  in  my  basket.'  She  then  offered  me 
these  two  apples,  which  I  was  forced  to  take  ;  but  she 
absolutely  refused  to  tell  me  her  name."  Each  member  of 
the  community  received  his  share  of  the  fruit,  rendered 
doubly  sweet  by  the  christian  charity  that  prompted  the 
giver.  On  another  occasion,  a  poor  woman  called  at  the 
door  and  offered  $25  towards  the  erection  of  the  church. 
Fr.  Larkin,  judging  from  her  appearance  that  she  could 
not  well  afford  to  give  that  sum,  asked  her  if  she  was  rich 
enough  to  give  so  much.  "  What  I  give  you,"  she  replied, 
'is  all  I  have  been  able  to  save  after  many  years  of  labor. 
I  have  not  another  cent."  "Oh  !  then,  I  cannot  accept  it," 
replied  Fr.  Larkin.  "O  Father  !"  replied  the  good  woman, 
"you  cannot  refuse  it.  God,  to  whom  I  give  it,  will  not 
permit  me  to  die  of  hunger."  She,  too,  would  not  give 
her  name. 


86  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Despite  the  generosity  of  the  faithful  and  the  eagerness 
of  all  to  see  the  church  rebuilt,  new  difficulties  arose, 
which  produced  another  new  phase  in  the  affairs  of  our 
Mission.  His  Grace,  the  Archbishop,  with  his  character- 
istic firmness,  positively  refused  to  consent  to  the  erection 
of  the  new  church,  unless  Our  Fathers  would  accept  all  the 
responsibilities  of  parish  priests.  This  Fr.  Larkin  was  un- 
willing to  do  ;  and  as  the  neighborhood  was  unsuitable  for 
the  erection  of  a  college  alone,  it  was  determined  to  sell 
the  property,  pay  off  all  the  debts,  and  seek  a  more  eligible 
portion  of  the  city  for  a  new  college. 

Meantime  the  classes  were  continued,  amid  a  thousand 
difficulties,  in  the  basement  of  St.  James'  Church.  We 
again  quote  from  the  diary  before  referred  to  :  "The  stu- 
dents suffered  still  more  than  ourselves,  but  we  mutually 
consoled  each  other  with  the  hope  that  we  should  soon 
have  a  fine  college.  We  continued  to  reside  as  before, 
near  the  old  church,  now  in  ashes, — took  our  breakfast  at 
half  past  six,  and  then  started  with  the  first  students  that 
passed  our  house  for  St.  James'  Church.  Here  we  re- 
mained teaching  till  3,  p.  to.,  when  we  dismissed  the  boys 
for  the  day,  and  returned  home  for  our  dinner  at  4.  Only 
God  and  those  who  have  experienced  it,  know  how  hard  a 
life  that  was  !  How  often  in  going  to  the  school  rooms  in 
the  morning,  were  we  drenched  with   rain,  and  had  to  re- 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  87 


main  all  day  in  our  wet  clothes.  Yet  neither  ourselves,  nor 
any  of  our  pupils,  thanks  to  God,  ever  fell  sick  during  the 
whole  winter.  The  students  afforded  us  great  consolation, 
and  it  was  their  delight  to  accompany  us  on  our  way  home 
after  the  classes  were  over. 

"  But  it  was  impossible  to  keep  the  school  any  longer 
in  its  inconvenient  situation  ;  and,  as  much  time  would 
necessarily  be  consumed  in  the  purchase  of  lots  and  the 
building  of  the  new  college,  it  remained  only  to  hire  for  a 
time  some  more  appropriate  building.  This  was  no  easy 
task,  as  no  one  wished  to  rent  his  house  for  a  Jesuit  school. 
Father  Larkin,  who  was  animated  with  a  great  devotion 
towards  the  Holy  Angels,  requested  all  the  community  to 
enter  on  a  novena  to  these  heavenly  spirits.  On  the  first 
or  second  day  after  the  novena  had  been  begun,  two  ladies, 
who  had  indeed  for  a  long  time  been  ministering  angels  to 
our  community,  came  to  inform  us  that  No.  JJ,  3rd  Ave- 
nue, near  nth  St.,  was  a  dwelling  house  that  would  suit. 
Accordingly,  on  the  1st  of  May,  1848,  the  community 
removed  to  their  new  abode.  Owing,  however,  to  the  in- 
creased distance,  the  students  from  Jersey  City  and  Brook- 
lyn, by  degrees  left  us,  and  our  number  was  reduced  to  60.'' 

While  Fr.  Larkin  was  still  busily  engaged  in  his  search 
after  a  fitting  site  for  his  new  college,  he  was  astounded 
one  day,  by  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  the  Archbishop  of 


88  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


Quebec,  congratulating  him  on  his  promotion  to  the  epis- 
copacy, and  stating  that  his  Grace  had  just  received  orders 
from  Rome  to  consecrate  him  for  the  See  of  Toronto  ; 
moreover,  that  Fr.  Larkin  himself  would,  in  a  few  days, 
receive  from  His  Holiness  the  necessary  documents  and 
commands.  A  copy  of  the  Brief  accompanied  the  letter. 
In  the  spirit  of  those  humble  men  against  whom  a  coun- 
cil of  the  early  Church  thought  it  necessary  to  issue  a 
special  canon  forbidding  any  one  falsely  to  accuse  himself 
in  order  to  escape  episcopal  ordination,*  Fr.  Larkin  re- 
turned the  Brief  unopened,  and,  in  haste,  flew  to  his  Superior 
for  permission  to  cross  the  ocean  immediately,  before  positive 
orders  could  arrive,  and,  by  a  personal  interview,  induce  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  not  to  insist  on  his  acceptance  of  any  ec- 
clesiastical dignity.  The  Superior  of  the  mission  yielded  at 
once  to  his  earnest  entreaties,  and  Fr.  Larkin  started  with- 
out delay.  It  was  none  too  soon,  for,  on  his  passage  he 
crossed  the  wake  of  the  ship  bearing  the  positive  orders  of 
Pius  IX.,  which  he  was  so  anxious  to  escape.  Arrived  in 
France,  he  visited  the  papal  nuncio  in  the  hope  of  inducing 
him  to  urge  his  suit,  but  was  sadly  disappointed  when  the 
prelate,  struck  with  his  lofty  bearing  and  noble  presence, 
sportively  replied  to  all  his  arguments  :  "Why,  you  are  the 
very  kind  of  man  we  want  to  wear  the  mitre  ;  and  I  warn 

*  Darras— Hist,  of  Cath.  Church.  Vol.  I,  p.  509. 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  89 

you,  if  you  wish  to  escape  it,  not  to  let  his  Holiness  see 
you  ;  if  you  do,  you  are  surely  undone."  Happily,  for  the 
distressed  Father,  in  his  flight  from  honors,  very  Rev.  Fr. 
Provincial  had  not  to  consult  so  immediately  the  good  of  the 
Church  at  large,  and  could  fully  enter  into  his  state  of 
mind.  Though  on  embracing  Fr.  Larkin,  he  had  expressed 
great  surprise  at  seeing  him  so  far  away  from  his  diocese, 
and  smilingly  rallied  him  for  so  flagrant  a  breach  of  the 
canons  ;  he  at  once  wrote  to  our  most  Rev.  Fr.  Roothaan, 
begging  him  to  intercede  with  his  Holiness,  in  behalf  of 
the  humble  child  of  the  Society. 

Still,  the  warning  of  the  nuncio  kept  ringing  in  Fr.  Lar- 
kin's  ears,  and,  fearing  to  proceed  on  his  journey,  he  begged 
to  be  sent  at  once  to  Laon,  for  his  third  year  of  probation. 
His  Superiors  once  more  granted  his  request;  and,  in  the 
mean  time,  an  account  of  the  whole  matter  was  forwarded 
to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  who  could  find  no  words  of  blame 
for  the  detached  religious,  and  kindly  consented  to  insist 
no  longer. 

The  departure  of  Fr.  Larkin  rendered  necessary  the 
appointment  of  a  new  Rector ;  and  Fr.  Ryan  was  accord- 
ingly named.  He  agreed  to  accept  the  conditions  regarding 
the  parish  Church,  which  Fr.  Larkin  had  judged  proper  to 
refuse,  and  soon  found  what  he  considered  a  suitable  situa- 
tion in  9th  Street ;  but  the  title  of  the  deed  of  property 


go  Nnv  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


was  discovered  to  be  unsafe ;  and  it  was  only  some  time 
after,  that  he  succeeded  in  purchasing  the  place  we  now 
occupy  on  15th  Street,  between  5th  and  6th  Avenues. 

To  enable  Fr.  Ryan  to  cover  the  necessary  outlay  for  the 
new  institution,  our  late  lamented  Fr.  Maldonado  kindly 
consented  to  accompany  one  of  the  Fathers  of  our  Mission 
in  a  tour  through  Mexico,  for  the  purpose  of  appealing  to 
the  charity  of  the  Catholics  of  that  country.  The  two 
Fathers  started  in  November,  1850,  provided  with  letters  of 
introduction  to  the  first  Mexican  gentlemen,  both  clerical 
and  secular ;  and  during  the  fourteen  months  of  Fr.  Maldo- 
nado's  sojourn  there,  by  his  polished  manners  and  engaging 
disposition,  he  succeeded  in  completely  gaining  the  hearts 
of  all :  so  that  both  clergy  and  laity  responded  with  true 
catholic  liberality  to  his  appeal  in  favor  of  a  distant  work  of 
charity.  The  other  Father  remained  some  months  longer, 
and  may  be  literally  said  to  have  travelled  over  the  whole 
of  Mexico.  About  $  1 8,000  was  collected,  besides  paintings, 
vestments,  and  sacred  vessels  ;  and  for  this  timely  aid  our 
Fathers  owe  a  lasting  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  Mexicans,  as 
without  it,  Rev.  Fr.  Ryan  would  never  have  been  able  to 
build  the  College. 

About  two  years  were  employed  in  its  erection,  and  on 
the  25th  of  Nov.,  1850,  the  former  students  of  the  School 
of  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus,  entered  their  new  and  commo- 


New    York  and  Canada  Mission.  91 


dious  abode.  In  making  the  transition,  however,  both 
School  and  Church  lost  their  old  names,  and,  at  the  request 
of  his  Grace  the  Archbishop,  were  placed  under  the  patron- 
age of  St.  Francis  Xavier:  the  College  and  the  Church  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier  thus  germinating,  as  it  were,  from  the 
Holy  Name  of  Jesus.  The  College  opened  with  about  two 
hundred  and.  fifty  students. 

These  works,  however,  were  far  from  engrossing-  all  the 
attention  of  the  Fathers  in  New  York,  for  the  city  afforded 
opportunities  for  numerous  other  ministries  of  zeal.  As 
the  rootlets  of  the  plant  naturally  seek  those  portions  of 
the  soil,  where  moisture  is  more  abundant ;  so  the  various 
offshoots  of  the  Society,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  holy 
sap  flowing  through  them,  have  ever  sought  out  the  abodes 
of  misery  where  suffering  is  to  be  relieved  and  crime  pre- 
vented. Now,  New  York,  in  its  various  Public  Institutions 
of  Charity  and  Correction,  offered  the  Fathers  a  very  har- 
vest of  miseries,  which  a  Xavier  himself  might  have  envied. 
In  the  words  used  by  Fr.  Du  Ranquet,  the  present  chaplain, 
when  soliciting  Archbishop  Hughes  for  the  care  of  these 
Institutions  :  "  In  other  apostolic  works,  the  missionary 
resembles  the  ordinary  hunter,  who  needs  must  exert  all 
his  strength  and  skill  to  succeed  in  securing,  one  by  one, 
a  few  game ;  but  here  is  a  royal  hunting  ground,  with 
numbers  of  men  solely  employed  to   start  the  game,  and 


92  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

drive  them  before  the  huntsman  :  the  men  thus  employed 
are  the  police." 

As  early  as  1852,  the  Fathers,  with  the  hearty  approval 
of  his  Grace,  began  the  work  of  mercy  by  visiting  the 
Tombs,  or  city  prison,  where  the  criminals  are  detained 
prior  to  their  sentence, — and  once  or  twice  a  month  brought 
the  consolations  of  religion  to  the  inmates  of  the  state 
prison  at  Sing-Sing,  whither  those  condemned  to  hard 
labor  are  mostly  sent.  But  it  was  only  in  1861,  that  secta- 
rian prejudice  and  bigotry  so  far  yielded,  or  were  forced  to 
yield,  to  the  instances  of  his  Grace  as  to  admit  the  members 
of  the  Society  into  that  wider  field  of  labor  for  which  they 
yearned. 

The  Public  Institutions  of  Charity  and  Correction  of  the 
City  of  New  York  are  mostly  built  on  a  number  of  small 
islands,  situated  in  the  East  River,  as  the  channel  is  called 
which,  some  fifteen  miles  in  length,  connects  Long  Island 
Sound  with  the  Harbor.  These  islands  are  known  as 
Blackwell's,  Ward's,  Randall's  and  Hart's.  To  begin  with 
that  nearest  the  city :  Blackwell's  Island,  contains  five 
public  institutions  :  1,  A  vast  hospital ;  with  a  smaller  one, 
somewhat  apart,  for  contagious  diseases,  especially  the 
small-pox ;  these  buildings  are  situated  at  the  extreme 
southern  end  of  the  island.  2,  The  Penitentiary,  viz.  :  a 
prison  for  criminals  condemned  to  detention  for  less  than 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  93 


two  years.  3,  An  asylum  for  the  poor,  called  the  Aims- 
House.  4,  Another  prison  called  the  Work-House,  where 
those  are  confined  who  are  punished  by  only  a  few  day's 
detention,  as  for  vagrancy,  drunkenness,  etc.  5,  An 
Insane  Asylum.  On  the  next  island,  Ward's,  is  an  Asylum 
where  destitute  emigrants,  not  having  as  yet  had  time  to 
acquire  the  privileges  of  citizens,  are  offered  a  home  for 
any  length  of  time  during  the  five  years  following  their 
arrival,  provided  that,  either  through  sickness  or  dearth  of 
work,  they  are  really  in  want  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  On 
this  island  also  are  two  large  edifices  recently  erected,  to 
make  good  the  insufficiency  of  those  of  Blackwell's  Island 
for  city  convicts.  On  the  third  island,  Randall's,  are  the 
establishments  for  the  children  of  destitute  parents,  or  for 
orphans,  or  those  taken  up  as  vagrants.  Hart's  Island, 
twenty  miles  to  the  East,  has,  of  late  years,  been  appropri- 
ated by  the  city  to  receive  the  excess  of  inmates  of  the 
others.  During  epidemics  or  contagious  diseases,  the  per- 
sons attacked  by  these  maladies  are  transported  thither. 
In  connection  with  a  school-ship,  a  school  has  been  estab- 
lished on  the  island,  to  receive  the  young  unfortunates  of 
Randall's  Island,  when  they  become  old  enough  to  be  able 
to  work,  and  manifest  an  inclination  to  become  sailors. 
All  these  establishments  are  divided  into  two  departments, 
one  for  males,  the  other  for  females  ;  and  it  is  not  an  exag- 


94 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


gerated  estimate  to  set  down  at  6,000,  the  number  of  persons 
in  the  various  institutions,  counting  in  the  officers  and 
employees. 

Blackwell's  Island  was  the  first  to  admit  one  of  the 
Fathers,  but  even  he  was  not  permitted  to  pass  the  night 
there.  Fr.  Jaffre,  a  former  missionary  of  Upper  Canada, 
started  daily  from  the  College,  visited  in  turn  each  of  the 
institutions,  and  after  displaying  a  zeal  which,  in  presence 
of  so  much  misery,  nothing  could  moderate,  returned  home 
at  night  completely  exhausted,  only  to  begin  his  work 
again,  the  day  following.  In  one  month's  time  he  was  in 
his  grave,  a  victim  of  the  typhoid  fever.—  The  pioneer  in 
the  good  work,  had  fallen,  but  there  were  hundreds  anxious 
to  take  his  place,  and  within  the  three  following  years, 
three  more  Fathers — Chopin,  Laufhuber,  and  Pavarelli — 
sank  at  the  same  post,  under  the  same  disease.  It  would 
be  surprising,  indeed,  if  the  heavenly  spirit,  which  vivifies 
the  Society,  were  less  fruitful  than  the  sap  which  Nature 
infuses  into  even  her  lowliest  trees  and  shrubs  ;  and  do  we 
not  there  behold  ever  clustering  around  the  buds  on  which 
their  growth  depends,  a  number  of  accessory  or  latent 
germs,  awaiting  only  the  moment,  when  the  principal  bud 
by  some  accident  is  destroyed,  to  burst  forth  into  a  vigorous 
life,  and  carry  on  the  plant  or  tree  to  its  full  development, 
lest  Nature's  work  should  be  frustrated  ? 


Neiv  York  and  Canada  Mission.  95 

The  dcvotedness  of  the  Fathers,  heroic  though  it  was, 
was  not  greater  than  was  required  to  enable  them  to  cope 
with  the  difficulties  attending  their  work — "difficulties," 
says  Fr.  Du  Ranquet,  "which  now  appear  incredible." 
As  long  as  the  Fathers  came  daily  from  the  city,  and 
returned  at  night,  matters  came  to  no  crisis  ;  but  when, 
seeing  the  drawbacks  of  such  a  position,  they  strove  to 
gain  a  permanent  residence  on  the  Island ;  then  indeed  the 
storm  burst  in  all  its  fury,  and  subjected  them  and  the 
Catholic  patients  to  every  kind  of  annoyance. 

Father  Marechal",  chaplain  at  this  time,  determined,  with 
his  accustomed  energy,  to  say  Mass  every  morning  in  the 
Poor  House  Chapel,  which  was  used  by  Protestants  as 
well  as  by  Catholics.  Breakfast  hour  being  six  o'clock,  he 
announces  Mass  for  half  past  five ;  but  the  director  of  the 
establishment  is  on  the  alert :  unfortunately,  Mass  is  not 
over  at  six — so  much  the  worse  for  those  who  have 
assisted  at  it— no  breakfast  for  them  that  day.  At  the 
Hospital,  bigotry  showed  itself  in  a  still  more  persecuting 
spirit.  Fr.  Marechal  had  just  installed  his  assistant  co- 
laborer,  when  the  young  physicians,  alarmed  at  this  new 
clerical  invasion,  and  animated  no  doubt  with  the  spirit  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  allows  every 
man  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  af  his  own 
conscience,  took  the  affair  in  their  own  hands,  and  hit  upon 


g6  New   York  and  Canada  Mission. 


a  remarkable  way  of  illustrating  their  idea  of  freedom  of 
conscience, — a  plan,  which,  they  were  convinced,  would 
soon  cool  the  ardor  of  both  priest  and  people. — The  very 
first  day  Mass  was  said,  on  making  the  rounds  of  the  sick 
room,  they  took  care  to  ask  of  each  of  the  Catholic  inva- 
lids :  "Have  you  been  at  Mass  to-day  ?"  Was  the  answer — 
«Yes" — they  at  once  rejoined :  "Since  you  are  well  enough 
to  go  to  Mass,  you  are  well  enough  to  go  home  ;  "  and  they 
actually  had  the  cruelty  to  dismiss  thus  a  crowd  of  poor 
Catholics,  with  one  foot  already  in  the  grave.  The  physi- 
cians were  young  men  ;  probably  had  never  before  had  to 
deal  with  Irish  Catholics  in  matters  of  religion,  and  sadly 
indeed  were  they  disappointed  if  they  hoped  by  persecution 
to  root  out  their  faith  and  their  love  for  their  religion. — At 
present,  the  poor  Irish  Catholic  may  be  said  to  have  almost 
won  the  day — for  three  Fathers  remain  constantly  on  the 
islands,  and  two  others  go  there  during  the  day,  now  to  one 
place,  now  to  another.  Even  a  greater  number  might  be 
employed,  for,  to  mention  only  one  item,  on  Blackwell's 
alone,  the  annual  number  of  deaths  amounts  to  2,000,  which 
gives  an  average  of  about  six  a  day.  Chapels  are  now  to 
be  found  in  the  principal  edifices,  and  not  only  do  the  faith- 
ful receive  the  sacraments  and  other  succors  of  religion, 
but  a  great  many  children  are  baptized,  and  numbers  of 
adults,  especially  at  the  moment  of  death  and  in  time  of 


New    York  and  Canada  Mission.  97 

pestilence,  abjure  their  errors,  and  are  received  into  the 
bosom  of  the  Church.  His  Grace,  the  Archbishop,  has 
already  several  times  visited  the  islands  for  the  purpose  of 
administering  the  Sacrament  of  Confirmation.  But  let  us 
hear  Fr.  Du  Ranquet  himself  describe  the  good  that  is  at 
present  being  done  among  the  wretched  inmates  of  these 
islands.* — "  That  which  has  struck  me  most  forcibly,"  he 
says,  "  in  this  ministry,  is  the  desire  expressed  by  so  many 
Protestants  to  become  Catholics,  when  they  see  death 
approaching.  Many  of  our  invalids  have  nourished  for 
years  this  thought  of  final  conversion ;  others  are  moved 
by  the  confidence  of  the  dying  Catholics,  and  some  begin 
by  saying  :  '  Father,  let  me  kiss  your  crucifix.'  I  remember 
especially  one  Protestant  woman,  who  had  probably  been 
struck  by  seeing  her  neighbors  kiss  the  cross  so  reverently, 
and  who  told  me  she  had  seen  in  her  sleep  a  majestic  per- 
sonage holding  a  large  key  in  his  hand.  This  key,  he 
informed  her,  opened  and  shut  the  kingdom  of  Heaven, 
and  unless  she  kissed  the  crucifix,  he  would  never  unlock 
the  gate  of  bliss  for  her.  She  was  converted,  and  became 
a  devout  Catholic. 

"  Occasionally,  on  my  rounds  I  come  in  contact  with 
Protestant  ladies  and  ministers  busy  distributing  tracts  and 
books ;  but  if  I  wish  to  escape  their  society,  I  have  only  to 

*  Letter  published  in  the  "Etudes  religieuses,"  etc.,  4th  Series,  2.  vol. 
p.  131. 


98  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


enter  the  ward  reserved  for  typhoid  or  small-pox ;  here 
there  is  no  danger  of  interference  from  them.  The  propor- 
tion of  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  the  various  institutions, 
is  worthy  of  note.  About  four-fifths  of  the  inmates  of  the 
hospital  are  Catholics,  but  in  the  penitentiary,  only  two- 
thirds.  Thus,  though  all  these  establishments  are  filled 
generally  from  the  lower  classes,  and  these  classes  are  in  a 
great  measure  composed  of  Catholics — the  prisons  contain 
far  fewer  of  the  latter  than  the  other  institutions.  During 
the  day,  those  that  are  well  labor  outside  or  in  the  shops, 
— but,  at  night,  they  are  locked  up  separately  in  very  small 
cells,  and  here  it  is  I  catch  them.  I  devote  about  three 
hours  every  evening  to  visits  to  the  different  cells,  where  I 
try  to  gain  the  prisoner's  confidence  by  kind  words  through 
the  iron  grating.  At  Mass,  I  sometimes  have  forty  or  fifty 
communicants,  of  whom  perhaps  eight  or  ten,  receive  for 
the  first  time. — I  was  surprised  one  day  by  a  visit  from  an 
individual  arriving  from  Oregon,  where  he  had  been  fight- 
ing in  the  wars  against  the  unfortunate  Indians.  He  came 
to  fulfil  a  promise  made  to  a  dying  comrade  on  the  battle 
field  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  where,  unable  to  find 
a  priest,  he  had  tried  as  well  as  he  could  to  supply  the  place 
of  one, — and  had  asked  the  wounded  soldier  if  he  died 
content.  '  I'll  tell  you,'  answered  the  dying  man,  '  how 
wicked  I  have  been.     You  know  what  the  New  York  Boys 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 


99 


are, — well,  I  was  among  the  worst  of  them  :  but  one  day, 
about  two  or  three  years  ago,  when  I  was  in  prison  at  the 
Tombs,  I  went  to  confession  for  the  first  time ;  since  that 
day,  I  have  behaved  myself  pretty  well,  and  now  I  die 
happy.'  '  Oh  ! '  replied  the  other,  '  I  know  the  Father  at 
the  Tombs,  and  as  soon  as  I  arrive  in  New  York,  I  will  tell 
him  all.' — "  No  fact,"  adds  Fr.  Du  Ranquet,  "  ever  encour- 
aged me  in  my  work  at  the  prison  as  much  as  this." 

While  the  Fathers  employed  in  these  holy  labors  were 
opening  Heaven  to  numbers  of  souls  and  earning  for  them- 
selves eternal  crowns,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  mem- 
bers of  our  mission,  was  suddenly  stopped  in  his  saintly 
career,  and  when  but  half  the  race  seemed  run,  was  called 
to  his  reward. 

We  left  Fr.  Larkin  in  Europe  relieved  of  the  responsibil- 
ity of  the  episcopacy — in  1849.  After  remaining  some 
time  in  England,  he  entered  upon  his  third  year  of  proba- 
tion in  France,  and  when  that  was  over,  reviewed  his  theo- 
logical studies  at  Laval.  In  July,  1851,  he  was  appointed 
Rector  of  St.  John's,  Fordham,  and,  at  the  expiration'  of 
his  term  of  office,  once  more  crossed  the  ocean  and  devoted 
himself  with  his  accustomed  zeal  to  the  work  of  the  minis- 
try in  England.  Here  he  received  a  letter  from  our  present 
very  Rev.  Father  General  investing  him  with  the  hio-h  and 
responsible     duties    of   Visitor    of    the    Vice-Province    of 


ioo  New  York  and  Canada  Mission. 

Ireland.  Having  accomplished  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  the 
task  imposed  on  him,  he  returned  to  New  York  in  1856, 
and  for  about  two  years  was  employed  in  the  parish.  On 
the  nth  of  Dec,  1858,  he  had  been  hearing  Confessions  as 
usual,  and  when  the  supper  bell  rang,  obeyed  its  summons 
to  take  a  hasty  cup  of  tea.  While  seated  at  table  he  felt  a 
sudden  stroke  of  apoplexy,  and  had  only  time  to  stretch 
out  his  hand  to  the  Father  next  him,  saying  :  "  It  is  all  over 
now  !  " — when  he  sank  heavily  to  the  ground.  Medical  aid 
was  at  once  sent  for, — but  the  call  was  from  above,  and  no 
human  power  could  "  bribe  the  poor  possession  of  a  day," 
or  "  lend  a  morrow."  As  it  was  impossible  for  the  dying 
servant  of  God  to  get  to  his  room,  he  remained  in  the 
arms  of  the  Fathers,  who  did  all  they  could  to  relieve  him, 
while  the  other  members  of  the  community  hastened  to  the 
chapel,  to  beg,  if  it  were  God's  will,  a  few  years  more  of 
life  for  so  useful  a  laborer.  The  blow  had  been  struck  in 
mercy  as  Fr.  Larkin  had  ever  desired  a  sudden  death  :—  his 
heart  having  flown  to  heaven  long  before  the  knell  that 
called  his  body  to  the  grave, — while  he  himself  had  ever 
looked  on  the  present  but  as 

"A  narrow  isthmus  'twixt  two  boundless  seas — 
The  past,  the  future,  two  eternities." 

The  world  to  come  was  all  he  thought  of — all  he  cared  for  ; 
no  pang  of  sorrow,  then,  no  vain  regret  disturbed  the  tran- 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  101 

quil  passage  of  his  soul,  which,  three  hours  after  his  first 
attack,  peacefully  went  to  its  Creator.  Fr.  Larkin  had 
nearly  completed  his  58th  year,  having  been  born  in  1801 
on  the  Feast  of  the  Purification  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.* 

It  was  not  only  the  parish,  in  which  Fr.  Larkin  had  been 
principally  employed,  that  felt  his  loss  ;  even  the  students  of 
the  College,  many  of  whom  had  had  the  happiness  of  at- 
tending at  least  one  of  his  retreats,  grieved  for  him  as  for  a 
father.  No  doubt  he  continued  in  heaven  to  pray  for  the 
children  he  left  behind  on  earth,  and  for  the  success  of  the 
work  of  the  education  of  youth,  in  which  he  took  so  deep 
an  interest.  Certain  it  is  that  the  state  of  the  College  was 
very  prosperous.  It  was  only  a  few  years  since  it  had  been 
built,  and  already  it  was  found  to  be  far  too  small  for  the 
ever  increasing  number  of  students.  A  new  building;  60ft 
by  120,  was  accordingly  begun,  and  in  June,  1861,  six 
months  after  the  date  of  the  charter,  part  of  it  was  fit  for 
use  ;  so  that,  in  the  following  September,  the  College  of  St. 
Francis  Xavier  received  its  500  students  in  an  edifice  in 
keeping  with  the  dignity  of  its  sainted  Patron. 

We  have  now  sketched,  however  imperfectly,  some  of 
the  principal  facts  in  the  history  of  our  Mission  ;*  we  say, 
some,  for  besides  the  large  gaps  in  our  account  of  the  rise 
of  our    Colleges  at    Fordham  and    New  York    we    have, 

*  On  a  foregoing  page  the  year  of  his  birth  is,  by  some  mistake,  put 
down  as  1800. 


102  New   York  and  Canada  Mission. 

through  want  of  the  requisite  information,  but  barely  allud- 
ed to  that  of  St.  Mary's,  Montreal,  and  have  not  written  a 
single  word  about  our  residences  in  Guelph,  Chatham  and 
Quebec ;  in  Troy,  Yorkville  and  Jersey  City.     Should  a 
future   day  find   us    conversant  with  the   details  of  these 
foundations,  it  would  afford   us   great  pleasure   to   record 
them.     For  to  relate  to  those  unacquainted  therewith  the 
onward  march  of  the  Society,  however  unpretending,  in 
any  part  of  the  world,  is  the  least  we  can  do  to  show  our 
appreciation  of  our  high  calling,  together  with  our   filial 
love  for  her  who  brought  us  forth  in  religion  ;  and  to  hand 
down  to  those  who  come  after  us,  the  memory  of  the  labors 
and   combats  of  our  fathers,  to   whose  saintliness    of  life 
joined  with  heroism   amid   whole  hosts  of  obstacles,  and 
persevering  energy  under  difficulties  almost  insurmountable, 
many   of   us  are   indebted  for  our  acquaintance  with  the 
Society,  and,  after  God,  for  the  priceless  grace  of  our  en- 
trance therein,  is,  we  think,  the  smallest  tribute  of  gratitude 
we  can  offer.     It  is  nature  itself,  and  nature  in  one  of  its 
holiest  instincts  that  prompts  the  child  to  trace,  with  what- 
ever materials  it  may  happen  to  have  at  hand,  the  features 
of  that  countenance  which  is  all  in  all  to  him ;  his  unskilled 
hand  will  err,  no  doubt,  and  produce  perhaps  only  a  homely 
caricature  where  the  fairest  of  images  was  intended,  but  the 
rough  draught,  such  as  it  is,  has  had  its  effect :  the  memory 


New  York  and  Canada  Mission.  103 

has  once  more  conjured  up  the  true  picture,  and  impressed 
it  still  more  indelibly  in  the  soul,  and  then,  the  loving  heart 
at  once  supplies  all  the  deficiencies   of  the  erring  hand. 

A  fezv  details  concerning  onr  Indian  Missions  in  Canada, 
on  which  we  chanced  too  late  for  insertion  in  their  proper  place, 
are  reserved  for  an  appendix. 


APPENDIX.* 


When,  as  stated  in  the  body  of  the  Sketch,  Fr.  Chazelle 
with  his  little  band  of  Missionaries  returned  in  1842,  to 
Canada,  there  was  no  residence  in  Montreal  as  yet  ready 
for  his  reception.  To  avoid  inaction  he  gladly  accepted  the 
parish  of  La  Prairie,  a  charming  village  just  opposite 
Montreal,  on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  formerly  one  of  the 
"Seigneuries  des  Jesuites."  Here  in  fact,  the  Fathers  had 
in  1668  planted  a  small  French  colony,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  their  first  permanent  mission  among  the  Iroquois, 
which  afterwards  became  so  celebrated  under  the  name  of 
Sault  St.  Louis. 

The  year  following  Fr.  Chazelle's  return,  the  Bishop  of 
Toronto  offered  the  Society  the  charge  of  the  Indian  Mis- 
sions of  his  diocese,  together  with  a  residence  in  Sandwich, 
a  town  opposite  Detroit,  on  lake  St.  Clair.  This  place  had 
formerly  been  the  centre  of  the  missions  of  the  Society 
among  the  Hurons  and  Algonquins,and  about  it  were  now 
collected  a  great  part  of  the  French  Canadians  who  had 
founded  Detroit!  For  at  the  time  when  that  city  and  all 
the  lands  on  the  West  bank  of  the  River  St..  Clair  were 
ceded  to  the  United  States,  they  crossed  to  the  Canadian 

*  The  following  details  are  mostly  taken  from  an  account  forwarded 
by  a  former  Superior  of  our  Mission,  to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Faith. 


ii  Appendix. 

side,  and  there  preserved  their  language  and  their  faith. 
To  meet  this  new  offer,  two  other  Fathers  left  France  for 
Canada,  and  accompanied  by  one  from  Montreal,  and  two 
brothers  began  their  apostolic  work.  In  1844,  this  mission 
round  which  the  labors  of  our  Indian  missionaries  now 
principally  extend,  was  separated  from  that  of  Montreal  and 
under  the  title  of  "Mission  of  Upper  Canada"  entrusted  to 
Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle ;  while  that  of  Lower  Canada  welcomed 
Rev.  Fr.  Martin  as  its  Superior. 

At  the  time  of  the  reinstalment  of  our  Fathers  at  Sand- 
wich, the  Indians  who,  in  olden  times,  had  lived  in  great 
numbers  around  lake  St.  Clair,  had  either  been  almost 
entirely  destroyed  or  compelled  by  the  whites  to  transport 
their  wigwams  towards  the  North,  and  the  West.  Not 
more  than  1 500  of  them  still  remained  about  the  lake,  and 
on  the  island  of  Walpole,  which  lies  close  to  its  Eastern 
shore.  Deprived  of  Catholic  missionaries  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  these  poor  people  had  greatly  fallen  off 
from  their  former  simplicity  and  purity  of  manners.  Prot- 
estant missions,  established,  at  great  expense,  by  the  Bible 
Societies  of  England,  and  powerfully  supported  by  the 
government,  had  succeeded  in  partly  estranging  them  from 
the  Catholic  Faith,  and  had  left  them  plunged  in  every  vice. 
Drunkenness  especially,  encouraged  by  the  merciless  cupi- 
dity of  the  whites,  made  fearful  ravages  among  them. 

It  was  under  these  unfavorable  circumstances  that  Fr.  D. 
Du  Ranquet  was  directed  by  Rev.  Fr.  Chazelle  to  leave 
Sandwich,  and  endeavor  to  establish  himself  in  the  midst 
of  the  Indians  of  Walpole  island.  With  no  other  help 
than  that  of  the  Brother  who  accompanied  him  he  built  on 
a  corner  of  the  Island  a  rough  chapel,  and  'alongside  a  hut 
for  a  dwelling-place.  This  done,  in  a  light  canoe  he  went 
in  search  of  the  Indians  through  that  marshy  country, 
intersected  as  it  is  in  all  directions  with  natural  canals  ;  and 
for  six  years  amid  extreme  privations  and  fatigues,  he 
labored  in  the  place  with  but  little  apparent  fruit.     On  the 


Appendix.  iii 

one  hand,  the  attachment  of  the  people  to  their  vices,  and 
on  the  other,  the  abundant  temporal  assistance,  which  they 
received  from  the  Protestant  ministers,  prevented  their 
profiting  by  the  exertions  of  our  missionaries.  It  was  not 
only  indifference  that  thwarted  Fr.  Du  Ranquet's  plans  for 
their  salvation,  positive  hatred  also  rankled  in  their  hearts. 
On  a  Sunday,  when  he  had  crossed  the  river  to  offer  the 
Holy  Sacrifice  for  a  congregation  of  whites,  whom  he  visit- 
ed from  time  to  time,  some  of  the  Indians  maliciously  set 
fire  to  his  chapel,  which  with  a  portion  of  his  dwelling  was 
soon  reduced  to  ashes.  However,  the  good  Father,  nothing 
daunted,  at  once  set  about  repairing  the  disaster.  A  certain 
number  of  the  natives,  who  till  then  had  remained  unmoved 
at  his  trials  and  suffering,  seemed  really  affected  by  his  re- 
cent misfortune  and  lent  him  their  assistance  ;  only  asking 
in  return  that  he  would  remain  among  them,  as  long  as  he 
could.  No  doubt,  their  request  would  have  been  cheerfully 
granted,  had  not  Fr.  Du  Ranquet  that  very  year,  1849,  un~ 
expectedly  received  an  order  to  leave  Walpole  for  the 
island  of  Manitouline. 

This  new  field  opened  to  his  zeal,  is  the  largest  of  the 
almost  countless  islands  that  dot  the  great  lakes  of  North 
America,  and  lies  in  the  northern  portion  of  Lake  Huron, 
running  East  and  West  for  a  distance  of  nearly  80  miles. 
The  greater  portion  of  it  is  studded  with  more  than  30 
small  lakes,  while  the  rest,  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak, 
was  covered  with  immense  forests.  Near  the  Eastern 
extremity  of  the  island,  on  the  shores  of  Wikewemikong  or 
Castor  Bay,  a  devoted  Canadian  priest,  Rev.  Father  Proulx, 
had  some  years  previous  planted  a  large  cross,  and  around 
it  had  succeeded 'in  gathering  a  number  of  Indian  families. 
The  village  thus  formed  he  called  "Holy  Cross,"  and  in  it 
he  protected  his  flock  against  the  pernicious  influence  of 
their  Protestant  neighbors  so  plentifully  assisted  by  the 
Government.  F.  Proulx,  however,  soon  perceived  that  in 
spite  of  all  his  efforts  he  would  be  unable  to    carry  out, 


iv  Appendix. 

single-handed,  the  work  he  had  undertaken,  and  that  a 
religious  Order  would  be  more  likely  to  succeed  in  it.  He 
accordingly  offered  our  Fathers  the  charge  of  his  little  flock 
at  Holy  Cross  :  and  in  the  fall  of  1843  Fr-  P-  Chone  was 
sent  with  one  Brother  to  relieve  the  devoted  priest. 

The  importance  of  this  Residence  of  Holy  Cross  on 
Manitouline  Island,  soon  determined  the  Superiors  to  des- 
patch some  more  Fathers  to  the  aid  of  Fr.  Chone.  Fr. 
Joseph  Hanipaux*  was  accordingly  sent  thither  in  1845  > 
and  about  the  same  time,  Fr.  D.  Du  Ranquet,  as  already 
mentioned,  received  word  to  leave  Walpole  for  this  more 
important  centre  of  action.  Still  later,  Fr.  Nicholas  Point 
joined  the  little  community  on  Manitouline  and  erected  a 
church  there  for  the  poor  Indians.  Important  though  this 
station  was,  a  single  residence  did  not  suffice  to  enable  the 
Missionaries  to  visit  all  the  Indians,  scattered  as  they  were 
over  the  country,  especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  Lake 
Superior  :  and  it  was  the  desire  of  remedying  this  that 
induced  Fr.  Chazelle  to  undertake  the  journey  during 
which  he  died.  After  his  death  Fr.  Menet,  at  the  earnest 
solicitation  of  Mgr.  Baraga,  Bishop  of  the  new  diocese 
of  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  was  sent  to  assist  his  Lordship  in  his 
noble  labors  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians. 

It  was  at  this  time  the  policy  of  the  English  Government, 
to  portion  off  the  Indians  everywhere  into  "Reserves"  at  a 
distance  from  the  sites  which  it  wished  to  occupy.  Thus, 
on  the  Canadian  side  of  the  River  of  Sault  Ste.  Marie  they 
were  forced  to  leave  the  shores  of  the  Sault  and  occupy  a 
Reserve  12  miles  further  down,  near  a  river  which  they, 
through  longing  regret  for  their  old  haunts,  called  the  Riv- 
er of  the  Desert,  but  which  the  whites,  as  if  in  derision, 
named  Garden  River.  Amongst  these  exiled  tribes  Fr. 
Kohlerf  took   up  his   residence.     Finally  in   1852,  Fr.  Du 


'-This  devoted  Father  died  riot  long  ago  at  Quebec,  after  27  years  of 
labor  in  our  Indian  Missions.     See    "Woodstock  Letters,"  vol.  i,  p.  122. 

tThis  Father  perished  about  2  years  ago  in  a  shipwreck  on  Lake 
Huron. 


Appendix.  v 

Ranquet  once  more  changed  his  residence,  and  set  out  for 
the  purpose  of  founding  a  new  house  at  Fort  William,  near 
the  northern  extremity  of  Lake  Superior.  An  agency  of 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company  established  on  this  spot  makes 
it  one  of  the  most  important  points  in  that  part  of  the 
Canadian  territory. 

These  three  Residences  comprise  all  our  Indian  Missions 
in  Upper  Canada,  or  Ontario  :  each  one  being  a  centre  for 
long  excursions  radiating  in  all  directions  whether  in  Can- 
ada itself  or  in  the  United  States,  wherever  a  few  natives 
happen  to  be  collected.  The  various  tribes  scattered  about 
these  parts  are  all  of  the  great  Algonquin  family  ;  but  it  is 
difficult  to  estimate  their  exact  number,  which  probably 
does  not  exceed  10,000.  Of  these  only  one-third  are 
Catholics,  a  thousand  perhaps,  call  themselves  or  allow 
themselves  to  be  called  Protestants  ;  the   rest  are  infidels. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked  what  results  can  be 
shown  to  have  repaid  the  devotedness  of  the  missionaries  ; 
but  to  arrive  at  a  just  appreciation  of  these  results,  regard 
must  be  had  both  to  the  character  of  the  Indians  and  their 
actual  circumstances.  As  to  their  character  it  is  almost 
proverbial  ;  and  modern  civilization  seems  to  have  stopped 
short  of  their  wigwams. 

Owing  to  their  inferiority  of  intellect  and  inconstancy  of 
disposition,  this  poor  race  seems  capable  but  of  a  very  lim- 
ited degree  of  cultivation  ;  and  hence,  they  have  no  pros- 
pect of  success  among  the  whites,  unless  the  latter,  with 
compassionate  charity,  take' care  of  them  as  they  would  of 
children.  This  is  what  the  Catholics  of  Canada  have  been 
doing  for  a  long  time  back.  But  where  can  this  spirit  of 
faith  and  charity  be  found  in  the  governments  of  our  day  ? 
True,  they  take  some  precautionary  measures  to  avoid  still 
greater  evils,  but  the  glaring  fact  still  stares  them  in  the 
face,  that  wherever  the  Indians  come  into  habitual  contact 
with  the  whites,  their  moral  corruption,  and,  as  a  necessary 
consequence,  their    gradual     extinction,  is    the  inevitable 


vi  Appendix. 

result.  Before  passing  judgment  then  on  the  labors  of 
our  missionaries,  it  will  be  much  to  the  purpose  to  glance 
at  the  results  achieved  by  the  English  government  working 
under  the  most  favorable  conditions  possible,  and  with 
unlimited  resources.  To  insure  the  success  of  its  under- 
taking it  began  to  build  for  the  Indians  the  village  of 
Manitounang,  a  few  miles  west  of  Holy  Cross  ;  and  was 
overjoyed  to  find  them  all  eager  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
advantages  thus  offered  them.  A  church  and  a  school 
were  erected  ;  and  their  necessary  appendages,  a  minister 
and  a  schoolmaster  were,  no  doubt  for  a  slight  compensa- 
tion, prevailed  on  to  forego  the  luxuries  of  civilized  society 
and  devote  their  lives  to  the  moral  and  mental  enlighten- 
ment of  the  benighted  natives.  A  number  of  master-crafts- 
men, and  of  ordinary  laborers  in  iron  and  wood  were  also 
secured  to  erect  houses  for  all  who  wished  to  abandon 
their  wandering  mode  of  life  for  more  sedentary  occupa- 
tions. Such  was  the  foresight  of  the  Protestant  govern- 
ment, that,  to  provide  with  more  than  ordinary  pressure 
against  any  sudden  return  of  the  old  love  for  the  woods  and 
prairies,  each  homestead  was  to  be  surrounded  by  a 
charming  little  plot  of  ground  enclosed  with  palings. 
Here  the  Indian  could  once  more  don  his  hunting  gear  and 
give  chase,  at  least  for  the  space  of  a  few  yards,  to  some 
unsuspecting  squirrel  ;  or  daubed  with  his  war-paint  could 
recline  in  his  rustic  arm-chair,  under  a  transplanted  tree  of 
the  forest,  and  shoot  his  poisoned  arrows  against  the 
painted  stakes  of  his  fence.  The  excess  of  pressure  thus 
innocently  removed,  he  could  pick  up  his  arrows,  return  in 
a  twinkling  to  the  bosom  of  civilization  ;  and  having 
washed  off  all  the  war-paint  and  slept  off  any  remnant  of 
the  old  forest-feeling — could,  the  following  day,  hoe  his 
potatoes  as  usual  with  the  rest  of  the  warriors.  Yes,  hoe 
his  potatoes,  for,  to  leave  no  stone  unturned  for  the  happy 
issue  of  its  enterprise,  the  government  had  provided  abun- 
dant implements  of  husbandry  ;  and  these,  together  with 


Appendix.  vii 

various  kinds  of  seeds  and  grains,  fine  cattle  and  young 
fruit  trees,  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  Indians,  while  skilful 
workmen  were  hired  to  instruct  the  uninitiated. 

The  only  conditions  for  the  enjoyment  of  these  advanta- 
ges were  docility  in  submitting  to  the  regulations,  assistance 
at  the  meeting-house  once  a  week,  sedate  behavior  during 
the  minister's  sermon  and  the  sending  of  the  children  to 
the  school. 

As  long  as  the  presents  lasted  and  the  distribution  of 
provisions,  clothing,  &c.  continued — all  was  well  ;  but  after 
a  while  the  government  deemed  the  Indians  fully  settled 
down,  and  sufficiently  instructed  in  the  manner  of  providing 
for  their  wants  by  their  own  labor,  so  that  it  gradually  di- 
minished the  great  expenses  thus  far  incurred  in  their  behalf. 
Surely  it  was  not  exacting  too  much  to  ask  them  to  hew 
their  own  fire-wood  in  the  adjoining  forest  ;  especially 
when  the  means  of  transport  were  furnished  gratuitously. 
The  government  accordingly  represented  to  them  the  pro- 
priety of  their  so  doing.  But  civilized  life  had  so  far 
sharpened  Indian  natural  shrewdness  that  the  object  of  all 
this  solicitude  hit  on  a  much  simpler  plan  for  procuring 
fuel  ;  and  judging  it  labor  lost  to  fell  trees  and  cart  wood 
when  there  was  just  at  hand  such  an  abundance  of  splen- 
did palings,  perfectly  dry  and  all  ready  for  the  fire,  they 
showed  their  predilections  by  daily  multiplying  the  breaches 
in  their  neat  little  fences.  The  destruction  of  the  palings 
was  at  once  followed  by  a  series  of  representations  on  the 
part  of  government,  of  reproaches,  and  of  menaces  ;  it 
even  forced  itself  into  the  minister's  Sunday  sermons  ;  but 
to  no  purpose  :  it  was  necessary  to  treat  the  Indians  as 
spoiled  children,  and  "pass  their  imperfections  by."  When 
the  palings  had  disappeared  and  thus  reduced  the  trim 
gardens  to  their  original  prairie-like  appearance,  the  beams 
inside  the  houses  were  attacked,  then  the  flooring,  doors 
and  lastly  the  outside  porches.  All  the  dwellings  were 
treated  in  the  same  way,  and  when  all  vestiges  of  timber 


viii  Appendix. 

had  vanished  from  them,  the  agricultural  implements  were 
next  seized  and  broken  to  bits,  to  secure  the  wood  work. 
The  domestic  animals  could  not  long  be  kept  from  the 
voracity  of  the  Indians,  and  what  with  the  houses  for  fuel 
and  the  oxen  for  food,  the  natives  were  indebted  to  the 
Government  for  many  a  hearty  meal.  A  few  years  later, 
tired  of  so  many  useless  efforts,  it  ceased  its  frequent  dis- 
tributions and  at  once  the  Indians  dispersed,  quitting  the 
famous  village,  now  composed  only  of  the  school,  the 
meeting  house,  and  a  few  of  the  government  buildings. 
About  this  group  of  dwellings,  portions  of  the  chimneys 
of  the  former  houses  of  the  Indians  still  stand  :  an  ironical 
protest  against  the  powerless  efforts  of  all  civilization  of 
which  the  Church  is  not  the  author,  and  the  motive  power, 
religion. 

Meanwhile,  what  was  passing,  a  few  miles  off,  at  the  vil- 
lage of  Holy  Cross  ?  The  principal  resources  of  the 
Catholic  Missionaries  there,  were  the  alms  received  from 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith  ;  but  the  grace 
of  God  enabled  the  devoted  Fathers,  even  with  such  limited 
means,  to  succeed  in  overcoming  the  natural  indolence  and 
carelessness  of  the  Indians.  On  plans  drawn  up  by  the 
Missionaries,  and  without  the  aid  of  the  whites,  if  we 
except  two  or  three  coadjutor  Brothers  of  the  Society,  the 
Indians  built  a  large  stone  church,  and  a  house  for  the 
Fathers,  also  of  stone  ;  moreover  a  school  for  their  chil- 
dren, and  finally  frame  houses  for  themselves  along  regular 
streets  traced  out  for  them  beforehand.  All  these  labors 
presupposed  a  great  number  of  others,  all  which  they 
performed  themselves.  Thus  they  had  to  fell  the  trees,  and 
hew  the  timbers  for  the  frame-work,  quarry  the  stones,  dig 
out  the  lime  and  prepare  the  mortar.  All  that  was  bought 
for  them  were  planks  for  flooring,  which  it  would  have  been 
more  costly  to  cut  in  the  woods.  The  secret  of  this  success 
lay  in  the  fatherly  encouragement  given  to  the  Indians,  and 
the  judicious  payment  for  their  services.     Large  quantities 


Appendix.  ix 

of  warm  clothing,  and  provisions,  such  as  flour  and  espe- 
cially salt  meat  were  purchased,  and  all  the  work  was  paid 
for  in  these  articles.  During  all  the  time  these  labors 
lasted,  the  Indians  lived  contented,  happy  and  quiet  ;  and 
acquired,  as  far  as  their  nature  admits,  a  habit  of  working 
which  they  have  ever  since  preserved.  To  encourage  them 
still  more,  and  reward  them  for  their  perseverance,  the 
Fathers  built  them  a  small  water-mill  to  grind  their  grain  ; 
but  as  the  island  could  boast  of  no  river  near  the  village, 
they  could  only  succeed  in  forming  a  very  small  reservoir. 
It  was  however  sufficient  to  grind  the  produce  of  each  year. 
In  spite  of  all  of  these  favorable  prospects  the  Missionaries 
had  still  their  share  of  anxiety,  owing  to  the  total  want  of 
foresight  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  which  seems  to  be  an 
incorrigible  defect  of  their  character.  These  simple  natives 
had  to  be  continually  urged  and  entreated  not  to  let  the 
time  for  planting  or  sowing  pass  by  ;  but  once  the  seed 
began  to  appear  above  the  ground,  the  contrary  excess  had 
to  be  guarded  against,  and  no  little  eloquence  was  necessary 
to  prevent  their  reaping  before  the  crops  were  ripe,  or  set- 
ting off  on  a  hunting  or  fishing  excursion  just  at  harvest 
time.  It  was  necessary,  besides,  to  conceal  the  grain  to  be 
used  as  seed  the  following  year,  as  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  the  Indians  to  resist  the  temptation  of  devouring  every- 
thing within  their  reach.  All  these  cares,  and  many  others 
besides,  required  no  doubt  on  the  part  of  the  missionaries 
great  patience  and  watchfulness  ;  in  a  word,  great  charity 
with  all  the  qualities  enumerated  by  St.  Paul.  But  in.  the 
end,  they  obtained  what  seemed  impossible,  and  what  really 
is  so,  even  with  unlimited  resources  for  a  government 
unaided  by  the  charity  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  fact  this  village 
of  Holy  Cross  in  1872  contained  about  500  souls,  twice  as 
many  as  can  be  found  in  any  other  settlement  throughout 
the  whole  country,  except  similar  Reserves  attended  by  the 
Sulpician  and  Oblate  Fathers  near  Montreal.  Moreover 
the  Indians  live  there  peaceably,  no  police  being  necessary 


x  Appendix. 

to  maintain  order  ;  they  assist  orderly  at  the  religious 
offices,  regularly  approach  the  Sacraments,  many  very  fre- 
quently ;  while  the  children  assiduously  frequent  the 
schools.  Pious  sodalities  have  been  organized  for  all — men, 
women,  boys  and  girls — and  to  enable  each  to  assemble 
its  members  apart,  a  little  chapel  has  been  erected  by  the 
Indians  themselves  without  any  help  from  the  Missionaries. 

The  Indian  Administration  could  not  see  without  chagrin 
the  very  different  results  of  its  own  efforts  and  of  the  labors 
of  the  Fathers  ;  and  to  do  away  with  the  standing  con- 
demnation of  its  method,  resolved  with  more  or  less  com- 
pensation made  to  the  natives,  and  a  more  or  less  forced 
consent  extorted  from  them  to  appropriate  the  whole  of  the 
island.  But  many  of  the  Indians  especially  those  of  Holy 
Cross  were  opposed  to  all  cession.  The  same  means  how- 
ever that  procures  majorities  in  more  civilized  assemblies 
were  employed,  not  without  effect,  in  the  forest  council  of 
Manitouline,  and  the  Government  triumphed.  To  appear 
condescending  in  its  victory,  and  throw  around  its  proceed- 
ings  an  air  of  justice,  it  left  to  the  Indians  of  Holy  Cross 
the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Island,  in  which  the  village 
lies.  This  small  portion  then  about  the  twelfth  part  of  the 
entire  island,  still  remains  to  them — though  they  cannot  be 
said  to  possess  it,  but  only  to  have  the  use  of  it,  and  a  very 
restricted  use  at  that.  Under  the  pretence  of  preventing 
the  destruction  of  the  forest,  they  are  forbidden  to  sell  to 
the  whites  the  timber  that  grows  in  the  neighborhood  ; 
they  can  only  deliver  it  up  to  the  Indian  administration  at 
a    fixed  price   far    less  than   they   could  obtain  elsewhere. 

Providence  however  seems  to  have  wished  to  punish 
the  cruel  rapacity  of  the  administration,  as  two  large 
conflagrations  have,  within  a  few  years  of  each  other, 
all  but  entirely  consumed  the  forests  that  still  remained  in 
the  Reserve  ;  and  even  burned  in  great  measure  the  very 
soil  which  is  now  almost  entirely  unfit  for  cultivation.  The 
state  of  poverty  to  which  the  village  is  thus  reduced  en- 


Appendix.  xi 

courages  the  hope  that  the  government  will  make  no  more 
efforts  to  deprive  the  Indians  of  what  remains  of  their  once 
lordly  possessions.  Though  deprived  of  the  riches  once 
spread  over  their  land,  the  water  still  furnished  an  abundant 
means  of  support  in  the  rich  fisheries  near  the  Island. 
But  the  government  hankered  after  these  too  ;  and  having 
purchased  the  right  of  possessing  the  Island,  concluded, 
according  to  the  immemorial  law  of  the  lion's  share,  that 
the  fisheries  had  been  surrendered  with  the  land. 

A  number  of  speculators  of  Upper  Canada  had  for  a  long 
time  coveted  these  sources  of  wealth,  aud  accordingly 
bought  them  of  the  administration.  Great  was  the  indig- 
nation of  the  Indians,  when  they  learned  this  new  invasion 
of  their  rights,  of  which  there  had  not  been  the  slightest 
question  in  the  pretended  contract  for  the  cession  of  their 
Island.  They  therefore  resolved  to  oppose  this  usurpation, 
and,  in  fact,  when  the  whites  came  to  fish  at  these  ancient 
fisheries,  the*  natives  drove  them  away,  and  for  the  time 
being,  had  the  advantage  by  reason  of  their  number.  This 
incident,  which  the  administration,  accustomed  to  the  usual 
inert  docility  of  the  Indians,  did  not  expect,  was  neverthe- 
less heard  of  with  pleasure.  There  was  at  length  legal 
matter  to  justify  the  application  of  force  and  to  put  down, 
by  a  great  stroke  of  authority,  all  further  resistance  to  the 
civilizing  efforts  of  the  Government.  An  act  of  rebellion 
had  been  consummated,  and  the  Missionaries,  whom  the 
entire  village  obeyed,  had  no  doubt  been  the  instigators  of 
the  revolt.  A  warrant  of  arrest  was  at  once  issued  against 
the  Indians  accused  of  the  act  of  violence,  and  against  the 
Superior  of  the  Missionaries  ;  while  the  person  to  whom 
the  fisheries  had  been  sold  was  himself  endowed  with  the 
necessary  authority,  and,  accompanied  by  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  men,  embarked  for  the  village  of  Holy  Cross.  On 
landing  he  went  straight  to  the  home  of  the  Missionaries, 
and  summoned  the  Father,  whose  name  was  on  his  warrant, 
to  follow  him  on  board  his  boat.     Now  the  accusation  had 


xi  i  Appendix 

so  little  foundation,  and  the  warrant  had  been  so  hurriedly 
issued,  that  the  Father  accused  by  name  was  actually  absent 
from  the  Island  ;  having  left  for  a  tour  throughout  the 
Mission,  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  troubles  in  question. 
The  man  with  the  warrant  was  not  prepared  for  this,  and 
feigned  at  first  to  disbelieve  the  absence  of  the  Father ;  but 
as  it  was  a  fact  too  easily  proved,  he  bethought  himself  of 
a  way  out  of  his  difficulties.  "No  matter  about  the  name," 
said  he  to  Fr.  Chone  who  received  him,  "if  it  was  you  who 
were  in  the  Island  during  the  rebellion,  it  is  you  who  are 
its  author,  you  must  follow  me."  As  there  was  no  order 
of  arrest  against  himy  Fr.  Chone  postively  refused  to  obey. 
While  these  things  were  taking  place,  the  Indians  of  the 
village,  suspecting  what  was  toward,  had  surrounded  the 
house  and  penetrated  into  the  room  where  the  scene  was 
passing.  The  discussion  was  growing  warm  :  the  man  of 
the  warrant  fearing  to  fail  in  his  attempt,  if  he  did  not  bring 
it  to  an  end  at  once,  produced  irons  to  fetter  the  Father's 
hands,  when  a  shout  of  indignation  burst  from  all  parts  of 
the  room.  The  man  drew  a  revolver,  and  threatened  to  kill 
whoever  should  attempt  to  oppose  the  execution  of  his 
orders.  An  Indian  thrust  himself  before  the  pistol,  and 
baring  his  bosom  :  "Kill  me  if  you  wish,"  said  he,  "but  woe 
to  you  if  you  dare."  It  was  a  critical  moment  :  the  Father 
wishing  to  prevent,  at  any  price,  the  shedding  of  blood,  or- 
dered the  Indians  to  withdraw  and  said  to  the  man,  that, 
though  protesting  against  the  injustice  and  illegality  of  the 
proceeding,  still  he  would  follow  him.  The  Indians  obeyed 
the  Father,  and  the  latter  departed  at  once  with  the  man 
and  his  followers,  who  steered  straight  for  Sault  Ste.  Marie, 
where  the  court  was  sitting  which  was  to  try  the  authors  of 
the  rebellion.  Sault  Ste.  Marie  is  about  150  miles  from  the 
village  of  Holy  Cross  ;  and  was  reached  only  the  next  day, 
when  the  Father  and  his  accusers  appeared  before  the 
court.  The  arrest  being  so  evidently  illegal,  and  so  com- 
plete the  absence  of  proof  regarding   any  offence  on  the 


Appendix.  xiii 

part  of  the  Father,  he  was  immediately  acquitted,  and  the 
man  of  the  warrant  reprimanded  by  the  court,  for  having 
exceeded  his  powers.  Covered  with  confusion  and  full  of 
rage,  he  reembarked,  and,  the  following  night,  when  the 
boat  was  in  the  middle  of  the  lake,  disappeared.  He  had 
been  seen  on  deck  the  evening  before,  silently  pacing  to  and 
fro  with  a  gloomy  air  that  bespoke  some  dark  intention. 
Every  one  understood  that  despair  had  caused  him  to  throw 
himself  into  the  lake.  Some  weeks  later,  after  much  search, 
the  remains  of  his  dead  body  were  found. 

Such  was  the  end  of  this  appeal  to  the  law  ;  the  punish- 
ment of  the  guilty  one  being  so  striking,  no  further  meas- 
ures were  taken  to  punish  the  rebellion  of  the  Fathers. 
Force  however  was  used  to  prevent  the  Indians  from  troub- 
ling for  the  future  the  whites  in  the  working  of  the  fisher- 
ies ;  and  after  the  first  excitement  was  over,  the  Indians 
with  their  natural  apathy  and  the  consciousness  of  their 
inferiority,  resigned  themselves  to  endure  what  they  could 
not  prevent  ;  thus  the  village  was  quiet  again  for  a  time. 

Somewhat  later  an  attempt  was  made  by  the  Indians  of 
Holy  Cross  to  avail  themselves  of  the  right  secured  to 
them  by  an  early  treaty  with  the  English  to  govern  them- 
selves, at  least  in  the  interior  of  the  Reserve  ;  but  the  only 
reply  of  the  Government  was  the  throwing  into  prison  of 
the  foremost  among  the  agitators.  Fr.  Chone  himself,  with 
the  ancient  treaty  in  his  hand,  went  to  plead  the  cause  of 
his  poor  Indians  before  the  Government  in  Canada,  but  he 
was  not  even  listened  to  ;  s^pme  independent  journals  pub- 
lished his  appeal,  but  no  more  attention  was  paid  to  it,  and 
the  entire  spoliation  of  the  Indians  was  an  accomplished 
fact. 

Manitouline,  the  Island  of  the  Great  Spirit,  has  thus  lost 
the  character  it  once  had  as  the  last  stronghold  of  Indian 
nationality  ;  but  the  village  of  Holy  Cross  still  possesses 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Indians  a  great  prestige  as  -centre  of  the 
Religion  of  the  Great  Spirit.     At  Corpus  Christi,  the  pro- 


xiv  Appendix. 

cession  in  the  village,  and  the  ceremonies  performed  with 
all  possible  solemnity,  attract  the  Indians  from  great  dis- 
tances, so  that  an  unusual  number  of  boats  and  canoes,  for 
several  days  together,  cover  the  bay  with  life.  The  con- 
course, however,  is  less  now  than  formerly,  owing  to  the 
greater  poverty  of  the  Indians,  and  the  disappearance, 
through  the  want  of  products  for  barter,  of  the  fair  that 
used  to  be  held  on  occasion  of  this  feast. 

If  all  the  Catholic  Indians  were  able  and  willing  to  as- 
semble at  Holy  Cross,  their  religious  instruction  would  be 
more  easy  and  complete  ;  but  deriving  their  principal 
means  of  subsistence  from  hunting  and  fishing,  from  maple 
sugar  and  wild  fruits,  they  are  unable  to  live  together  in 
great  numbers  ;  especially  now  when  the  resources  are  as 
rapidly  diminishing  as  the  whites  are  advancing.  The  great 
number  collected  at  Holy  Cross  is  therefore  an  exception  ; 
and  besides  the  Catholics  of  this  village,  about  an  equal 
number  are  scattered  throughout  that  part  of  the  Mission 
intrusted  to  the  Fathers  of  Holy  Cross.  For  this  reason, 
while  one  of  the  Fathers  stays  at  the  village,  the  other,  or 
the  others,  if  there  are  several,  are  obliged  to  scour  the 
country,  summer  and  winter,  across  forests  and  lakes,  in 
search  of  their  flock.  In  summer,  the  Missionary  sets  out 
in  a  little  bark  canoe,  light  enough  to  be  carried  from  one 
river  to  another,  or  to  be  taken  from  the  water  where  rapids 
prevent  navigation.  But  in  winter,  he  has  to  travel  on 
large  snow-shoes,  and  to  draw  after  him  his  baggage  on  a 
little  sleigh.  At  all  seasons,  he  is  obliged  to  pass  the  night 
in  the  open  air,  and  for  this  reason,  usually  carries  a  buffalo- 
robe  to  shelter  himself  against  the  storms  in  summer  or  the 
cold  in  winter.  Besides  this,  he  needs  also  a  little  chapel 
to  say  Mass,  vestments  and  books,  etc.  For  the  transpor- 
tation of  these  objects,  one  or  two  Indians  usually  accom- 
pany the  Father  on  his  journeys.  Arrived  at  a  station  of 
Indians,  our  Missionary  at  once  sets  to  work.  He  begins 
by  reciting,  and  making  them  repeat  the  principal  articles 


Appendix.  xv 

of  the  Christian  doctrine  ;  he  then  administers  the  Sacra- 
ments, according  to  their  needs,  and  sees  that  all  fulfil 
their  duty  of  yearly  communion.  This  done,  he  sets  out  for 
the  next  station,  distant  generally  several  days'  journey  ; 
and  thus  a  tour  is  made,  lasting  one,  two  or  even  three 
months. 

During  the  fine  season,  which  lasts  three,  or,  at  most, 
four  months,4some  Protestant  ministers,  mostly  Methodists, 
traverse  the  country,  collecting  about  them  some  of  the  In- 
dians, and  not  being  exacting  as  to  the  conditions  necessary 
for  the  admission  of  neophytes,  usually  publish,  on  their 
return  to  the  cities  of  Canada,  an  account  of  the  astonishing 
fruits  of  salvation  they  have  produced  ;  of  the  thousands 
of  Indians  who  have  escaped  the  toils  of  the  Arch  Enemy, 
and  the  thousands  of  others,  who  ask  only  to  hear  the  good 
tidings  in  order  to  throw  themselves  on  the  Lord.  A  few 
years  of  such  extensive  conversions,  would,  one  would 
think,  leave  no  more  work  for  the  Bible  Societies,  and  yet, 
strange  to  say,  year  after  year,  new  thousands  are  converted 
in  the  official  reports  and  still  a  few  thousands  always  re- 
main to  throw  themselves  on  the  Lord  the  following  year 
— for  these,  of  course,  generous  contributions  are  of  abso- 
lute necessity.  Besides  these  fine  weather  missionaries,  there 
are  at  the  Island  of  Manitouline,  at  Bruce  Mines,  and  at 
Garden  River,  near  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  stationary  Protestant 
ministers,  who  have  a  certain  number  of  Indians  settled 
around  them  ;  but  the  number  of  Protestant  Indians  is  very 
limited  ;  as  the  natives  that  have  no  fixed  abode  but  wan- 
der over  the  country,  are  all  either  Catholics  or  infidels. 

We  have  spoken  almost  entirely  of  the  Residence  of 
Holy  Cross  at  Manitouline,  because  it  is  the  most  impor- 
tant of  the  three  ;  but  the  same  account  may  be  substan- 
tially applied  to  the  other  two,  except  that  circumstances 
in  these  latter  are  less  favorable  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Faith  and  of  purity  of  morals  among  the  Indians,  owing  to 
more  frequent  intercourse  with  the  whites  than  exists  at 
Holy  Cross. 


xvi  Appendix. 

In  the  part  of  the  Mission,  north  of  Lake  Superior,  visit- 
ed by  the  Fathers  residing  at  Fort  William,  there  has  been 
for  many  years  past  not  even  the  shadow  of  a  Protestant 
preacher,  the  country  being  too  wild,  and  the  journey 
thither  too  painful.  As  the  Indians  are  occupied  almost 
entirely  in  hunting  for  furs,  to  be  sold  to  the  agents  of  the 
Hudson  Bay.  Company,  they  are  almost  constantly  dis- 
persed in  the  forests,  and  can  thus  be  but  rarely  visited  by 
the  Missionary.  This  is  a  great  drawback,  as  deprived  of 
the  religious  instruction,  and  the  immediate  society  of  the 
Missionary,  it  is  with  great  difficulty  they  can  preserve 
themselves  from  evil. 

Such  being  the  actual  condition  of  our  Missions  of  Upper- 
Canada,  it  may  be  asked  :  what  is  to  become  of  them  ? 
and  should  we  still  continue  the  labors  and  sacrifices  neces- 
sary for  their  existence  ? 

To  the  first  question,  it  may  be  answered  that,  in  all  pro- 
bability, the  Indians  will  remain  for  quite  a  while  longer, 
in  their  present  condition,  as  the  greatest  portion  of  their 
country  is  unfit  for  cultivation  ;  and  it  will  only  be  in  case 
rich  metal  mines  are  discovered,  that  a  large  population  of 
whites  will  resort  thither.  The  advent  of  the  whites  would 
be  sure  to  drive  the  Indians  further  northward  ;  but  even 
then,  the  positions  occupied  by  the  Catholic  Missionaries 
would  be  very  useful  for  them  to  act  upon  the  whites  them- 
selves ;  and  besides,  it  would  be  necessary  to  follow  the 
Indians  into  their  exile  ;  a  fact  which  would  require  a  still 
greater  number  of  Missionaries. 

As  to  the  second  question,  it  must  be  confessed,  it  is  not 
unusual  to  met  with  very  good  people  who  own  themselves 
wearied  at  seeing  the  Indians  profit  so  little  by  all  the 
efforts  made  for  their  improvement.  Is  it  not  time  at  length 
for  these  extraordinary  cares  to  cease  ?  Now  that  the 
whites  have  penetrated  so  far  in  every  direction,  if  the  In- 
dians have  good  will,  what  prevents  them  from  profiting  by 
the  advantages  of  civilization  within  their  reach  ?     And  if 


Appendix.  xvii 

they  do  not  wish  to  do  so,  have  they  any  right  to  expect 
these  extraordinary  succors  ?  "In  reply  to  these  queries,  I 
can  but  repeat,"  says  the  Superior  of  our  Mission,  referred 
to  in  the  beginning-,  "the  answer  I  received  from  one  of 
these  Indians  on  this  very  subject.  At  a  visit,  I  had  occasion 
to  make,  some  years  ago,  to  Holy  Cross,  Manitouline,  the 
chiefs  were  assembled  at  the  house  of  the  Missionaries  to 
bid  me  good-bye.  I  addressed  them  a  few  words,  to  move 
them  to  gratitude  towards  the  Fathers,  who  were,  amid  so 
many  sacrifices,  devoting  themselves  to  their  welfare  ;  and 
at  the  same  time,  to  urge  them  to  greater  efforts  to  place 
themselves  on  a  level  with  the  whites,  in  order  at  length  to 
get  on  by  themselves.  They  listened  with  deep  attention 
to  my  address,  which  one  of  the  Fathers  interpreted  for 
them,  sentence  by  sentence  ;  and  when  I  had  finished,  one  of 
the  chiefs,  rising  with  the  approbation  of  the  others,  replied 
in  their  name  :  he  declared  how  much  he  and  his  compan- 
ions were  convinced  of  what  I  had  said,  and  of  the  advan- 
tage they  would  derive  from  their  emulation  of  the  industiy 
and  arts  of  the  whites.  'But,  Father,'  said  he,  in  conclu- 
sion— 'there  is  one  thing  you  have  forgotten  to  take  into 
consideration  :  that  we  may  be  capable  of  the  improvement 
which  you  recommend  to  us,  you  must  find  a  means  to 
chanee  our  Indian  skin  into  the  skin  of  the  whites  ;  for  as 
lone  as  we  remain  with  the  skin  in  which  we  were  born,  we 
will  not  be  able  to  acquire  more  talents  and  intelligence  than 
the  great  Spirit  has  thought  proper  to  allow  us.  Should 
you  not,  then,  have  compassion  on  our  weakness,  and  con- 
tinue to  supply  us,  as  your  own  children,  with  that  aid, 
without  which  we  will  never  be  able  to  succeed  !' 

"Such  was  the  really  wise  conclusion  of  this  Indian,  and 
I  had  nothing  to  reply,  but  that  we  would  continue  our 
assistance  as  long  as  possible.  In  fact,  if  it  be  true,  as  Our 
Lord  tells  us,  that  no  one,  with  all  his  efforts,  can  add  one 
inch  to  the  height  of  his  body,  it  is  not  less  true  that  our 
intelligence  also  has  its  limits,  different,  not  only  in  each  in- 


XVI 11 


Appendix. 


dividual,,  but  also  in  each  race,  as  the  history  of  all  ages 
clearly  proves  ;  limits  which  God  has  with  infinite  wisdom 
and  goodness  fixed  in  the  designs  of  His  Providence,  for 
the  greater  good  of  each  one.  And  if  we  consider  what 
use  civilized  nations,  above  all,  those  of  our  day,  make,  for 
the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  their  souls,  of  that 
elevated  degree  of  intelligence,  with  which  they  have  been 
enriched  by  Divine  Providence,  we  will  easily  perceive  that 
they  have  no  right  to  reproach  the  Indians  with  their  negli- 
gence in  this  respect,  and  that  they  should  rather  apply  to 
themselves  the  words  of  our  Divine  Saviour  :  "Blessed  are 
the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy." 


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